Around the SB Nation: LSU's Death Valley the SEC's best home-field advantage

Looking at those talking points made me think of something rather interesting.

LSU’s quarterback is unproven (although, unlike Crompton, he had a good bowl). LSU’s SEC record last year was identical to UT’s. So what makes LSU a preseason top 10 pick, yet still gives any UT fan to predict a 9-3 season the insanity label? Their offensive line is probably better than ours, and their receivers are doubtless more experienced (how could they not be?), but I’d take the Tennessee defense in a heartbeat over an LSU unit that gave up 50 points twice last year and yielded more than 20 in 7 of 8 SEC games (including against Auburn and MSU). I think they’re still living on the glow from their National championship two years ago, coupled with high hopes after a good bowl game. I understand that they’re better than us at certain positions (mostly on offense), but I don’t see such a great disparity that LSU is expected to win 10 games when Tennessee is expected to win 7. Yeah, Lane Kiffin is new, but it isn’t like Les Miles is the coach of the century.

Same opponents:
Florida
Georgia
Vanderbilt
Alabama
Ole Miss
Auburn

LSU opponents:
Arkansas
Miss St.

Tennessee opponents:
South Carolina
Kentucky

Theirs is easier, but not a whole lot easier. Also, Georgia, Ole Miss, and Alabama are road games for them. They won’t be favored against Florida, and I’d be a bit surprised to see them as road favorites against top 15 teams. So they’ll be favored in 8 games. Since we have home games against the teams near us in ability (Auburn, USC), we’ll likely also be favored in 8 games. Yet they’ll be 10-2 and we’ll be 7-5. I just don’t see it.

Picked Tennessee 9th in their SEC Power Rankings, behind, get this, Arkansas and Vanderbilt.

Now, I know Vandy went to a bowl game last year, but doesn’t the fact that we beat them last year during our down year and they were on their best year in a long time mean anything to the writers at ESPN? Honestly, it’s laughable the “analysis” ESPN sometimes gives: I think they just try to jive on the public opinion of teams. I mean, I know this doesn’t come as any surprise to us, given ESPN’s hating on Tennessee for as long as I can remember, but jeeze. C’mon Chris Low.

I was watching a clip of 1st & 10, about Tennessee’s signing of Bryce Brown. The guy, what’s his name, said something along the lines of “Bryce Brown is a perfect fit at Tennessee because both he and Lane Kiffin are thugs that won’t live up to the hype they have received.” Are you kidding me? He went on to talk about how Bryce Brown was overrated because he plays in a weak area.. And note, this was after the Army All-American game where Bryce Brown earned co-MVP honors, and earned the praise of just about every coach there with his skillset.

It’s funny, too, because I think the boys at PTI (who I have always liked. I think those guys and the crew from “Around the Horn” are the only good analysts that get put on TV consistently) are the only guys who like Lane Kiffin’s plan — they actually have gone on the record as loving it. It just astonishes me that Lane Kiffin can go in, get a top 10 recruiting class, assemble the staff that he did, and people still think that he’s a joke.

If he is a joke, I think he’s this one: the one that is quite deadly. I doubt Urban Meyer is laughing about how Lane ran his mouth and got Richardson and Brown and Oku, among the others that can be attributed to Lane signing.

Anyways, this turned into a big rant, all because I saw this article. Honestly? ESPN thinks Vanderbilt is better than Tennessee? Vanderbilt lost their best playmaker by far last year to the draft, I will remind people!

Fun quotes from that link of 1st & 10:

These guys are made for each other, because these are two way out there guys; two egomaniacs who probably — this is a probable — probably will never quite live up to the hype.

I’ve wondered about his competition in Wichita, Kansas — that’s a whole ’nother issue.

I’m on Al Davis’s side.

Not going to quote it, but he also bashed Brown for being “all over the place” with his commitment stuff, and while it certainly was a drama deal, it wasn’t the first — or last — time a kid has changed his mind about stuff on a dime.

Also, I want to know the “few coaches” the chick says backed off of Bryce Brown because of Butler. Because I haven’t heard of any coaches being like "Woah, woah, this kid is one of the most skilled running backs in the past few years, but he’s got a recruiting fella’ " And, if a coach did back off of Brown because of it, they deserve to be fired. The kid is good, and is a good guy by all reports.