By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – Another November, another high-stakes LSU-Alabama game.
After a month of turbulence in the Southeastern Conference, two of its strong contenders for one of the 11 available College Football Playoff berths awarded to Power 4 teams next month are colliding in Tiger Stadium Saturday afternoon at 2:30 on ABC.
Both aim to avoid a third SEC loss. Alabama (6-2, 4-2 in the SEC), mostly on the strength of its early-season blowout of Kentucky, is ranked No. 5 by the CFP selection committee while LSU (6-2, 3-2) comes in at 14th.
Somebody’s stock will rise. For Alabama, it’s the last obvious hurdle, as the Crimson Tide won’t face another ranked opponent. Not so for LSU, which hosts No. 7 Texas next Saturday and then goes to No. 13 Tennessee a week later.
First-year Tigers coach Lane Kiffin has directed his players to ignore those rankings. Just win, baby, is his approach.
They’re buying it.
“I really don’t care,” quarterback Sam Leavitt said about their current CFP status. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to go win games. So hearing the rankings right now doesn’t matter. We could be 1 or 50, and if we go win or lose the next five or four, that ranking doesn’t even apply. You’ve got to focus on the moment at hand.”
He does care about beating ‘Bama. He’s stoked to be playing in one of college football’s top rivalries. Even as a teenager in Oregon, he watched the Tigers and Tide clash.
“Obviously, it means a lot,” Leavitt said in his weekly media session Tuesday. “And for me to be in this position after being a little kid, and if someone told me ‘Bama was playing LSU on Saturday, I was going to be watching that game. Being from the West Coast and fantasizing when watching a game down here not being a part of it, it’s going to be a surreal and special experience.”
Leavitt’s mobility, coming out of an open date, figures to be improved. He’s dealt with a hamstring issue for most of the season. But restricting his running has resulted in his best performances, and the cleanest – turnover-free outings in dominant wins over Mississippi State and Auburn, while he’s completed 63 of 83 throws for seven touchdowns.
Meanwhile, LSU’s defense might get a lift if linebacker Whit Weeks makes it back this week from a fractured leg suffered in September. Kiffin has listed him as doubtful but observers would not be surprised to see the savvy senior on the field Saturday.
It would be a timely return, said Kiffin, who touted the Tide’s offense in his Monday media session.
“They’ve got really great players on offense. The quarterback (Keelon Russell) has played awesome this year and is a problem because he can run the ball and is an elite thrower,” said Kiffin. “They ran into two great defenses (in their losses to Georgia and Tennessee), but they’re really well coached and have great schemes.”
Alabama has lost two of its last three, and struggled Oct. 24 to stop the skid in a 312-20 homefield win over a mediocre Texas A&M team. The Sept. 12 shellacking of Kentucky, 45-17, is the most impressive outing, unless you give the Tide credit for playing then No. 1 Georgia to the wire in a 20-17 homefield loss Oct. 10.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com