No workforce in school soccer wants a win in Week 1 greater than the LSU Tigers.
And never as a result of their playoff hopes hinge on a highway victory on the Related Press No. 4 Clemson Tigers. Moderately, after years of futility to start out the season, No. 9 LSU wants a win to show this 12 months is any totally different.
Head coach Brian Kelly, coming into his fourth season as LSU head coach, is 0-3 in Week 1 since fleeing South Bend for Baton Rouge in November 2021. However the Tigers’ struggles aren’t a current phenomenon below Kelly. LSU hasn’t received in Week 1 since its 2019 nationwide championship season.
This system’s five-game Week 1 dropping streak is its longest since 1991-95, when it adopted a loss to Georgia with 4 consecutive towards Texas A&M.
However that was again when LSU was an afterthought, mired in six consecutive dropping seasons.
These Tigers are no slouches.
With the expertise Kelly has gathered, it ought to completely be higher from the outset. He said as much in July, telling reporters, “With the workforce that we’ve…it is unacceptable for us to not play our easiest in Recreation 1.
“It is a singular objective…It is a troublesome objective however it’s in entrance of them, they usually’ve acquired a clock operating,” Kelly added.
From 1996-2019, LSU had a sterling 21-2 Week 1 report (a 2015 house sport towards McNeese State was canceled due to inclement weather), with some spectacular wins over AP preseason prime 25 groups, together with at No. 15 Arizona State in 2005, No. 3 Oregon in 2011 and No. 8 Miami in 2018, the latter two at AT&T Stadium in Dallas.
These assertion victories propelled LSU to double-digit win seasons, together with a BCS title sport look in 2011. A win on Saturday towards Clemson would possibly ship the Tigers to equally lofty heights.
It will definitely put LSU on the within observe to a Faculty Soccer Playoff berth. Maybe extra importantly, it will additionally signify large progress.
If there was one fixed through the workforce’s 0-5 Week 1 mark this decade, it has been a troubling lack of defensive manufacturing. The offense hasn’t been the difficulty, averaging 307.6 passing yards and 25.6 factors per sport.
The protection has persistently let the Tigers down, beginning with permitting an SEC-record 623 go yards to former Mississippi State quarterback Ok.J. Costello in 2020. Total, the LSU protection has allowed a median of 489.6 yards (376 passing, 113.6 dashing) and 35.6 factors per sport through the dropping streak.
Clemson’s offense, which returns senior quarterback Cade Klubnik and his prime three receivers from a season in the past (junior Antonio Williams and sophomores T.J. Moore and Bryant Wesco Jr.), is greater than able to exposing any deficiencies in LSU’s protection. If LSU leaves Memorial Stadium with a win, the maligned unit can have probably made a number of key stops, which might be an enormous leap after being uncovered the previous 5 seasons.
For many groups, Week 1 is only one sport. The SEC likes to say, “It simply means extra,” and nowhere is that extra true than with LSU this weekend.
