No staff in faculty soccer wants a win in Week 1 greater than the LSU Tigers.
And never as a result of their playoff hopes hinge on a highway victory on the Related Press No. 4 Clemson Tigers. Slightly, after years of futility to begin the season, No. 9 LSU wants a win to show this 12 months is any totally different.
Head coach Brian Kelly, getting into his fourth season as LSU head coach, is 0-3 in Week 1 since fleeing South Bend for Baton Rouge in November 2021. However the Tigers’ struggles aren’t a latest phenomenon underneath Kelly. LSU hasn’t received in Week 1 since its 2019 nationwide championship season.
This system’s five-game Week 1 shedding streak is its longest since 1991-95, when it adopted a loss to Georgia with 4 consecutive towards Texas A&M.
However that was again when LSU was an afterthought, mired in six consecutive shedding seasons.
These Tigers are no slouches.
With the expertise Kelly has gathered, it ought to completely be higher from the outset. He said as much in July, telling reporters, “With the staff that we’ve got…it is unacceptable for us to not play our highest in Recreation 1.
“It is a singular purpose…It is a troublesome purpose nevertheless it’s in entrance of them, and so they’ve bought a clock operating,” Kelly added.
From 1996-2019, LSU had a sterling 21-2 Week 1 report (a 2015 house recreation towards McNeese State was canceled due to inclement weather), with some spectacular wins over AP preseason prime 25 groups, together with at No. 15 Arizona State in 2005, No. 3 Oregon in 2011 and No. 8 Miami in 2018, the latter two at AT&T Stadium in Dallas.
These assertion victories propelled LSU to double-digit win seasons, together with a BCS title recreation look in 2011. A win on Saturday towards Clemson may ship the Tigers to equally lofty heights.
It might actually put LSU on the within monitor to a Faculty Soccer Playoff berth. Maybe extra importantly, it could additionally signify huge development.
If there was one fixed through the staff’s 0-5 Week 1 mark this decade, it has been a troubling lack of defensive manufacturing. The offense hasn’t been the difficulty, averaging 307.6 passing yards and 25.6 factors per recreation.
The protection has persistently let the Tigers down, beginning with permitting an SEC-record 623 move yards to former Mississippi State quarterback Okay.J. Costello in 2020. General, the LSU protection has allowed a median of 489.6 yards (376 passing, 113.6 speeding) and 35.6 factors per recreation through the shedding streak.
Clemson’s offense, which returns senior quarterback Cade Klubnik and his prime three receivers from a season in the past (junior Antonio Williams and sophomores T.J. Moore and Bryant Wesco Jr.), is greater than able to exposing any deficiencies in LSU’s protection. If LSU leaves Memorial Stadium with a win, the maligned unit can have seemingly made a number of key stops, which might be an enormous leap after being uncovered the previous 5 seasons.
For many groups, Week 1 is only one recreation. The SEC likes to say, “It simply means extra,” and nowhere is that extra true than with LSU this weekend.
