Louisiana State University

versus

University of Georgia

================================

First, the Athens weather forecast from the Weather Channel.

THU	FRI	SAT	SUN
Sunny	Sunny	Sunny	Sunny
lo -° hi 75°	lo 48° hi 76°	lo 50° hi 76°	lo 54° hi 80°

It looks like it will be a perfect day for football in Athens.

Analysis and Prediction

I think everyone is writing us off.  I'm not too far from writing us off, as well.  The only reason that I think we can even stay in this game is because we still have a lot of talent.  Maybe Tepper and Dinardo will just throw away all of their "schemes" and just let the players get after it.  IT'S DOUBTFUL, but we can always hope.

One thing I've been thinking about is why is it that everyone in America can see that Tepper and his defense has not worked in the past, isn't working now, and will not work in the future, except for Gerry Dinardo.  The only person behind Tepper is Dinardo.  Is Dinardo just plain stupid???  He consistently blames the offense for losing, while chalking up the defensive inadequacies as "problems with execution" (i.e., it's the players fault).

After listening to Dinardo harp on last years MSU game this week, I thought back.  I looked at every game since last years Auburn game.  The only SEC game we won was the MSU game.  I have to ask myself, "Why did we win the MSU game?"  The answer is simple, MSU is the only game that we've played where the opposing offense had no passing attack.  I even remember the week leading up the game, Jackie Sherrill considered starting his second or third string QB, because he was a better passer.  We've lost every other SEC game, always due to the opposing team passing for record yardage against Tepper's D.  Therefore, it is clear that Tepper's D can't stop a passing attack.

Now, why can't Dinardo see the obvious???

I think the answer lies with LSU's offense.  The only SEC team which has had a weaker passing attack than MSU has been LSU.  Therefore, when Dinardo sees Tepper's D in practice stop the LSU offense, he views this as the player's executing proper technique.  In short, Tepper's D always seems to be in the right position while practicing against the LSU passing game.  Since Tepper's D can stop LSU's offense during practice, Dinardo rationalizes that Tepper's D should be able to stop all of our SEC opponents.  When our SEC opponents chalk up record passing yardage against us, he consistently blames it on execution -- after all, they seemed to do it right in practice.  Therefore, until LSU can develop an adequate passing game, Dinardo will never realize the Tepper's D sucks.

Now, to the predictions.  Unless there are some drastic changes, Quincy Carter should be named SEC Offensive Player of the Week.  I just don't see Tepper's D stopping Carter.  The only possible chance LSU has rests on the arm of Josh Booty.  I don't think Booty has to have a "great" day, he just has to complete some passes early on so that Georgia will have to respect the pass and not put 8 men in the box.  If Booty can do this, look for LSU to slow the game down a bit and turn to the running game.  If Booty cannot come through, Georgia will put everybody up on the line of scrimmage the whole game and dare Booty to throw.  Either way, it should be a horse race.

MY PREDICTION:

Dinardo doesn't make any changes -- AND -- the result:

LSU     17

UGA     42