LSU will instantly find out how good it is – or isn’t – in 2024.
Matt Zemek, 16powers.com.
Most of the time, when college football analysts look at teams’ schedules, they will point to a mid-October or early-November conference game as the most defining game of that team’s season. Yet, it’s a little different for the LSU Tigers this year. If they want to make the 12-team College Football Playoff and rise to the level their fans expect and hope for, it’s undeniably true that they will need to win the big games on their SEC schedule. Usually, the Tigers need to go through Alabama in order to get where they want to go. In 2024, that is still probably true. Why, then, is a Week 1 conference game the most important game on the schedule and not Alabama? Let’s go into the discussion of why the Week 1 Labor Day weekend game in Las Vegas versus USC is the most important game of the 2024 campaign for Brian Kelly and his crew.
Let’s start with a big-picture overview of both LSU and USC. They both had bad defenses and terrible secondaries last season. USC’s defense was mismanaged by Alex Grinch, while LSU’s defense was very poorly coached by Matt House. The secondaries were both bad, and the secondary coaches were replaced. Both head coaches, Lincoln Riley of USC and Brian Kelly of LSU, cleaned house on their respective defensive staffs, an acknowledgement that their defenses didn’t need light to moderate tweaks around the edges; they needed wholesale transformations and a dramatic overhaul in coaching and guidance.
USC and LSU are also similar in that they had the last two Heisman Trophy winners playing for them in each of the past two seasons. Caleb Williams won the 2022 Heisman and came back in 2023. Jayden Daniels had a very good 2022 season but then took it to the next level when he claimed the Heisman in 2023. USC and LSU have the top two picks of the 2024 NFL draft. They’re no longer able to light up the scoreboard on Saturdays. Caleb and Jayden now belong to the Sunday world of the NFL. USC and LSU now step into 2024 seasons with mysteries at quarterback and uncertainties about how every position group will work together and produce complementary football. Both teams are viewed as lacking depth along the defensive line. However, LSU won a very crucial transfer portal battle in the middle of May when Jay’Viar Suggs committed to the Tigers. LSU was able to beat out USC and other schools for that prospect, giving the Tigers a boost they sorely needed.
Yet, in the larger picture, you can see all the similarities between LSU and USC. It’s striking how many things these two college football programs have in common. When LSU plays USC, it will be like looking into a mirror.
If LSU wins, the Tigers will instantly gain the belief that they can and will compete with the big boys in college football. They will be in the College Football Playoff discussion. With a soft mid-September schedule following that USC game, LSU would likely enter the October 12 Ole Miss game unbeaten. That Ole Miss game is enormous, but if LSU loses to USC, the Ole Miss game becomes a must-win, an absolute necessity, in the playoff chase. Should the Tigers fall to USC in Week 1, they would need to beat Ole Miss just to stay afloat in the playoff derby. Losses to both the Trojans and Rebels would leave them with zero margin for error in the second half of their season.
LSU gets Ole Miss, Alabama, and Oklahoma all at home this season. The Tigers will have a hard time winning all three games, but getting two seems reasonable. Road trips to Arkansas and Texas A&M could be thorny, so if the Tigers win two of their three huge home games and lose one SEC road game to go 6-2 in the conference, the USC game is probably going to be the game which makes the difference between a 10-2 overall record and a 9-3 mark. That difference is likely to be the dividing line between a No. 10 playoff seed or exclusion from the 12-team field. High-end schools in the SEC and Big Ten, should they go 10-2 under the 12-team format, will probably make the playoff. Schools which go 9-3 will be left out unless the quality of both their wins and losses is so dazzling that the selection committee can’t exclude them. The more you look at the schedule, the more that USC game feels like the whole ballgame, the most central pivot point on the slate. The Ole Miss game is the other one, but the USC game is going to set the table.
Let’s keep in mind that LSU has failed to make a New Year’s Six bowl game each of the past two seasons, in spite of winning the SEC West in 2022 and enjoying Jayden Daniels’ Heisman Trophy in 2023. The past two seasons have featured some notable accomplishments in Baton Rouge, but the Tigers did not land a top-tier bowl destination in either season. Why? They lost a high-stakes-poker season opener to Florida State in each of those seasons. When teams play a huge Week 1 game, they are making a statement that they’re willing to play anyone, anywhere, anytime, in an attempt to claim the kind of win which makes a difference in a playoff debate. Give LSU and Kelly credit for playing these kinds of games, but at some point, the Tigers need to win them. They need to put themselves in position where they have the leverage, not someone else. They gain the big margin for error, not someone else.
LSU-USC is a fascinating matchup in its own right and on its own merits, even if you strip away the context attached to that game. When adding the other details and historical plot points, however, it becomes even more apparent that the first game on the 2024 schedule is the most important one. It puts a ton of pressure on this team and Brian Kelly, but it also gives this team a chance to immediately answer burning questions and instantly improve the mood around a football program which is spending far too much time in the SEC shadows created by Georgia and Alabama.
