Bet on BCS Title Game – LSU Welcome Ohio State
by Russell Edward
This last game of the Florida if things begin on a bad foot. Taking advantage of the Buckeyes’ potentially fragile psyche could be the most important card the Tigers have to play in this game, as the Buckeyes match up very well against them on the actual field of play.
Just because LSU has the team speed to look better at some points than Ohio State, they still don’t come close to having what Florida put on the field last year in the title game. In that game, the common misperception is that Florida simply spread the Buckeyes using four and five wideout sets, then used their superior speed to take advantage of Ohio State’s slower defensive backs. In reality, the Buckeyes did not fall into one-on-one coverage except for a couple of times during the game. Instead, they used variations of zone coverage. This forced Florida to not only be ready for those zone coverage schemes and have a perfect game plan drawn up to counter, but also for Florida to execute that game plan to near perfection in order to beat it.
: New Orleans, January 7, 2008 at 8 p.m. EST
The Tigers will not be able to emulate the game plan that Florida brought into last year’s game because of the lack of true speedsters at wideout (Early Doucet excepted) and because of quarterback Matt Flynn. Flynn is a far better runner that Florida’s QB Leak was, but Leak had far better pinpoint accuracy when throwing the ball.
Although the Buckeyes run defense ranks third nationally, they have shown that they can be taken advantage of in a couple of games. LSU has the versatility in their rushing game to be able to churn out the necessary ground yards to keep drives sustained if coach Les Miles and his coaches can concoct the right game plan tonight.
The x-factor in whether or not LSU can win this game and cover the 3.5-point football betting spread that favors the Tigers will be how LSU decides to use backup QB Ryan Perrilloux when the Tigers get into the red zone. Both he and Flynn have the legs to win this game and there will be a package that Miles needs to use at the right time in order to win what will surely be an exciting chess match tonight.
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