CFB - LSU at Tennessee

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2007-11-30

Underachieving LSU played with fire, and got burned, as the loss to Arkansas this past Friday knocked the Tigers out of the national championship hunt. It was a fitting setback considering how LSU has played in SEC action, having gone 0-6-1 ATS in its L7 league games. Not all is lost yet though, as they’ll play Tennessee for the conference title and automatic BCS bowl berth this week in Atlanta.

The Vols got here via a dramatic 4OT win in Kentucky and are 5-0 SU & 3-1-1 ATS in their L5 games overall. The underdog in this h2h series owns a 3-3 SU & 4-0-2 ATS record, while the dog in the SEC title game is 9-6 ATS.

Assuredly this is not what LSU had in mind in playing for the SEC championship. The Tigers underachieving outfit could not pull out one more miracle and were outplayed and out-coached at home against Arkansas in triple overtime loss. The supposedly best defense in the country gave up 513 total yards, including 385 yards on the ground. Tennessee had to beat Kentucky to play in Atlanta and needed four overtimes to finally wrap up SEC East crown. With both teams having played highly emotional and tense contests, what either is going to have left is going to be in question even with BCS berth at stake.

Early in the season, so-called TV experts were saying LSU has so much talent and ability, quarterback Matt Flynn just has to manage the game and Les Miles team will take care of the rest. This fallacy was proven again and again as Flynn, despite several uneven efforts, came through in the clutch time and time again. However his awful performance for almost 40 minutes cost the Tigers a chance to bury Arkansas early. Miles skills as a motivator will be tested, as his team has officially fallen short of goals and his ability to try to divert attention away from him about Michigan job will become more intense with no national championship talk for reporters to respect.

Philip Fullmer’s crew might not look like much, yet somehow they won last five encounters to hold off a Georgia team that might be the best squad in the SEC right today. In Tennessee’s last five victories, three of the wins were decided by 3, 1 and 2 points respectively. The defense may be slower than a senior citizens group at a Knoxville nursing home; nonetheless they have managed to give up fewer points then what the offense has scored. Erik Ainge has thrown 27 touchdown passes and completed over 64 percent of his passes for better then 2,900 yards this year. Yet it's the things he hasn't done, like getting ride of the ball and not taking sacks that has helped him and his team immeasurably. Ainge has just eight interceptions and has been sacked just handful of times.

Key Trend – LSU is 6-16 ATS against conference opponents over the last three seasons.
These teams have played a pair close contests the last two seasons, with each winning once and Vols covering both. Each of these teams is 2-3 ATS versus comparable opponents, with LSU outscoring their grouping by 11.2 PPG and Tennessee being outscored by almost 10 PPG.
Prediction – LSU by 14