After last season’s devastating loss in Death Valley to Mississippi State University, Louisiana State University looks poised to come and redeem themselves. In last year’s game, MSU came out firing on all cylinders, surprising everyone that watched them.
Dak Prescott played one of the greatest games of his career, and led the Bulldogs to an amazing 34-29 victory in the Death Valley Stadium. This was the first game that MSU had won at LSU since 1991, and was also the first game MSU had won in the series in the past 15 years.
“I just stayed true to myself, trusted my teammates, trusted the coaches and we got it done,” Prescott said last season. “Everybody’s happy right now.”
The game skyrocketed MSU into the AP Top 25 rankings, and started a run that led the three consecutive victories over Top 10 teams and shot MSU to the number one ranking that they held for most of the season.
The game was exhilarating, and it started off one of the greatest seasons MSU has ever had, but this is a completely new season. The Bulldogs have a whole new personnel, but look to take advantage of some of LSU’s weaknesses.
“I don’t know that there is an advantage or a disadvantage. The advantage for us is that our guys played in a very tough road environment against, to me, what is an in-state rivalry,” Head Coach Dan Mullen said.
“They (LSU) also have the advantage that they are fresh. They didn’t have to play last week. Their players are all fresher and ready to go. They have a new defensive staff and you don’t get to see what they are doing on defense.”
LSU was scheduled to start off the season against McNeese State last weekend, but the game got canceled due to a four hour weather delay, which means LSU will begin their season in the sold out Davis Wade Stadium.
When asked about LSU not having game tape, Prescott said “It is different, but we are going to take what we have and make sure we master that. As long as we have that mastered, we can change things up during the game by what they’re throwing at us.”
LSU opened up as a four-to -five point favorite in almost any spread that can be seen, and this is mainly set up because of the lack of experience MSU has this season. The Bulldogs had to replace three offensive linemen, and that is a key factor in picking favorites.
If Prescott can get enough protection from his offensive line, the Bulldogs will very easily be able to pull out a victory against an LSU squad who has yet to have their first game jitters.
The biggest key factor is the one advantage the Bulldogs have over the Tigers. That is the fact that we have the best quarterback in the SEC.
Expect Prescott and Mullen to come out with more play calls than they did against Southern Mississippi. It seemed as though we did not call as many plays that we could have and mostly played one defense the entire game. This can be a huge factor if we open up with our full arsenal of plays.
Expect a great game with one of the best environments of the season this weekend.
