People get ready.....

Alabama's undefeated. LSU's undefeated. Alabama plays a bad Ole Miss team, with four offensive starters suspended, and a mediocre at best Tennessee team without their starting quarterback. It doesn't matter who LSU plays. Both will remain undefeated. They will meet on the field in the afternoon of 5 November 2011, in what will likely be one of the most watched, reported, and opined college football games in the last 20 years. Under any circumstances, it will decide one half of the BCS championship game a month early.

Alabama fans have been methodically lulled by the media into a sense of superiority to the rest of college football and of parity with LSU because of dominating defensive performances, explosive rushing statistics, and lopsided results against the same foes. Alabama is a good team, in a year of few really good teams - there is no doubt about that. But as much as I hate to say it, LSU is far better. Alabama starts slow, often giving up big plays on defense in the first quarter to inferior teams until corrections are made. They typically struggle offensively, having gone 3-and-out on 55% of their opening drives. LSU doesn't. They score first, stop immediately, and other than being in top tier of penalized teams, don't make mistakes. They have freak athletes at almost every skill position, and a mistake-free quarterback that can throw downfield. AJ McCarron is a mistake-free quarterback, but lacks the ability to accurately deliver vertical passes over about 12 yards. LSU now has Jordan Jefferson, the absolute worst quarterback to ever don pads, EXCEPT against Alabama, when he turns into a combination of Montana, Marino, Elway, and Brady.

So, "just let Richardson bang through them" some will say. You don't "bang through" LSU's defense. Richardson's rushing numbers will be anemic, trust me. LSU knows that the way to defeat Alabama is making AJ McCarron win the game - which he can't do. Alabama does not have the individual skills at receiver to counter LSU's freakish, and more experienced, secondary. In previous games, Alabama has been able to absorb the opponent's initial thrust, then make adjustments and slowly counter throughout the remainder of the game with superior depth and conditioning. It's not going to work against LSU - they are just as deep, if not more so, and just as conditioned. If Alabama gets behind too far too early, Richardson and the standard rushing gameplan must be abandoned, and a redshirt sophomore with a history of overthrows and misses will have to win the game.

People, get ready. Cinderella's slipper cracks on 20 days. Make reservations for the CapitalOne Bowl, unless the BCS people have the brains to keep Alabama as the #2 SEC team without going to the SEC Championship game. If the Lord told me I had to spend 30 minutes with either Satan or Les Miles, I'd have to think about it for an hour or so. I despise LSU far more than my control of the English language will allow me to describe it. But, they are going to win on 5 November, and there is nothing that anyone in the Alabama nation can do about it.