FiveDimes recently released over/under regular season win totals for college football teams.
Here is an early-season look at the LSU Tigers in the SEC.
Over/under
FiveDimes has LSU at 8.5 regular season wins. Last year, the Tigers went 8-4 in the regular season. The line features a more favorable over for bettors at -115, while the under is set at -125.
The upside
Talent won’t be an issue. It never is at LSU.
Five-star recruit Leonard Fournette is back for his sophomore campaign and look for the Tigers to ditch the running-back-by-committee format and feature Fournette exclusively. He was drawing comparisons to Adrian Peterson when he entered college football, so if he’s anywhere near that skill level, he should be one of the best backs in the SEC.
The offensive line should be good again, helping to pave the way for Fournette and allow time for either Anthony Jennings or Brandon Harris to pass to a quality group of receivers.
If the offense can be better, it should help ease some young players on the defensive side into the season. Tre’Davious White will be the featured defensive back, but even that position, which has included several draft picks during the last few years, will be young.
As already mentioned, head coach Les Miles doesn’t have to worry about talent. There’s skill across the board for the Tigers. What he does have to worry about is how his inexperienced players will step up to one of the more difficult schedules in the nation.
The downside
Quarterback play hindered the Tigers last year. If Jennings or Harris haven’t taken giant steps forward, that will plague the Tigers once again this season.
Whoever starts, the season won’t be old before the first test knocks at the Tigers’ door.
LSU must travel to Mississippi State in the season’s second game. If that isn’t enough, LSU then hosts Auburn before traveling to Syracuse to conclude September.
October features a road trip to South Carolina before hosting Florida at home. Then November happens.
LSU will navigate through November by traveling to Alabama and Mississippi and hosting Arkansas, which is predicted to be much better, and Texas A&M.
The Tigers will likely be underdogs in two of the four contests in November, to go along with entering games against Mississippi State and Auburn as likely underdogs.
The verdict
Jennings and Harris better be much better or this could be a long season in Baton Rouge.
For LSU to satisfy the over with nine wins, it must record at least one upset. The Tigers will be heavily favored against McNeese State, Syracuse, Eastern Michigan and Western Kentucky, and should be slightly favored against the Aggies, Razorbacks and Gators.
That leaves five games in which LSU will either face toss-up games or be an underdog. That’s just too many questionable games to favor the Tigers in the over. LSU can be an eight-win team, but to depend on the Tigers to win more than that, would be too risky.
Go with the under and take the worse return.
