FanPost

Where the Wild Things Are....

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"There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen"

After a harrowing two week road trip through The Plains of Auburn to The Swamp in Gainesville, the LSU Tigers will return to the supposedly friendly confines of Death Valley in Baton Rouge, where legend says the dreams of opponents come to die.

That journey saw Coach Les MIles call up two separate young quarterbacks to make their first start in an SEC road game. Thankfully, LSU now sits at 1-2 in conference play, as Anthony Jennings was able to help guide the Tigers to a hard fought win over the Gators after Brandon Harris was overwhelmed by Auburn the week before.

But despite the surroundings of a home environment, there will be little else that seems familiar when the Kentucky Wildcats venture into Tiger Stadium. As the winds of change continue to blow through the SEC, the Wildcats of 2014 bear little resemblance to the team that was run out of Baton Rouge by four touchdowns in 2011, and have become a dark horse contender to represent the SEC East in Atlanta for the SEC Championship.

AND THE WALLS BECAME THE WORLD ALL AROUND

The last time Anthony Jennings played in Tiger Stadium, that ever embarrassing segment of Tiger Nation repeatedly booed the young sophomore making only his sixth start as he continued to come onto the field after turning the ball over three times against New Mexico State.

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That unmistakable symptom of Catastrophe Syndrome led to Brandon Harris coming off the bench and convincing Coach Miles that he was ready to lead the team in an SEC road game. It was clear on The Plains that Harris was not, and Miles turned back to Jennings in The Swamp. Jennings was solid if not unspectacular, but was able to avoid turning the ball over, convert key third downs, and make just enough plays with both his arm and legs to give the team a chance to win. The team was up to the challenge.

With Jennings now set to return to Death Valley as the starter once again, it remains to be seen how Tiger Nation will receive him when he takes the field.

Those citizens that feel it appropriate to boo a struggling player, coach, and team, are generally also the kind that do not admit their mistakes freely. They will likely sit in begrudging silence until Jennings inevitably makes another mistake, and then jump at the chance to call for Harris once again. Of course they will be shouting how they told us so all the while, not unlike those that never accepted Les Miles as our coach never fail to scream that the sky is falling after every loss, or close win for that matter.

To add insult to ignorance, those same poor souls also tend to be the kind that blindly overestimate LSU's talent level and give no credit to their opponents. They marked the Kentucky game as a sure win the day the schedule was released, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will change their misguided opinion.

Similar delusions of grandeur led to more sky is falling hysterics when the chicken littles could not accept a lopsided loss to Mississippi State after 14 straight wins in the series, despite clear signs to anyone willing to see them that the Bulldogs were an extremely good team. Less than a month later, Starkville is basking in the first ever #1 ranking for their program, and Dak Prescott is the early Heisman favorite.

So, while it will likely prove futile, it is at least worth attempting to educate Tiger Nation on the Wildcats from Lexington.

WE'LL EAT YOU UP

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As it did with Mississippi State, the key to victory against this team will depend upon stopping an extremely dangerous playmaker at quarterback in sophomore Patrick Towles. While he is not playing at Prescott's level, yet, he is another massive signal caller at 6'5 240 pounds, who runs the ball extremely well, and is using his NFL caliber arm and accuracy to distribute the ball to the playmakers in Coach Mark Stoops' balanced offensive attack.

Towles threw for 369 yards and 3 touchdowns against Florida in Kentucky's only loss, a triple overtime thriller in The Swamp. Since then, Towles has picked apart Vanderbilt and South Carolina to have the Wildcats at 5-1 and in control of their own destiny in the SEC East.

Towles has the benefit of operating behind a very good offensive line, one that has also cleared the way for Kentucky's deep and versatile group of running backs. The top four Wildcat backs all average over 5 yards per carry, two of which average well over 7.

The Wildcats average 36.5 points per game compared to the Tigers' 34.9, and are averaging over 448 yards per game, nearly 35 yards more than LSU.

This is an extremely balanced and efficient offense, and while the maligned LSU defense looked better against a below average Florida offense, they will have to play even better to hope to slow down this effective Wildcat attack.

LET THE WILD RUMPUS START

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The 2014 LSU Tigers are a team that has been, and will continue to be, defined by their youth. For better and for worse.

There may be no more talented group of freshmen in the country, and they have played a bigger role for this Tiger team than any in recent or distant memory. 17 true freshman have already seen the field for this team, and they have accounted for 22 of LSU's 31 touchdowns on the season.

While the experience being gained by these raw but talented newcomers to the college football world certainly bodes well for the future of the program, it has made for an understandably bumpy trek through the SEC schedule thus far. The Tigers started 0-2 in SEC play for the first time under Coach Miles, and the 34 point loss to Auburn was the worst defeat in Miles' tenure as well.

That said, the youthful inexperience is beginning to fade.

Malachi Dupre gave LSU it's only real bright spot on offense against Auburn using his athleticism to haul in a 52 yard bomb from Brandon Harris that set up the Tigers' only score of the night. That play came late in the 1st quarter to help bring the score to a still manageable 17-7 before things truly got out of hand. Seeing those youngsters playmaking ability in the thick of battle gives Tiger Nation hope, and likely a glimpse of many more big plays to come down the road.

Trey Quinn has also been a regular factor in the passing game, and was a standout against Florida giving Anthony Jennings a consistent and reliable target to move the chains when needed. This was after proving his mettle by returning to the Auburn game after a frighteningly explosive collision across the middle that drew an ejection of the defender for the hit.

On defense, true freshman safety Jamal Adams has proven to be too good to keep off the field, and has carved out significant playing time in a secondary filled with future NFL players. His classmate Davon Godchaux has already played his way into a starting role, and lent some semblance of stability to the Tigers' woefully vulnerable defensive line holding Florida to more than 50 rushing yards less than their average to that point. Sione Teuhema and Deondre Clark are also beginning to see valuable snaps at defensive end adding much needed depth to position.

The emerging presence of redshirt freshmen Maquedius Bain, Frank Herron, and Greg Gilmore at defensive tackle is likely the key to solidifying LSU's interior. A deep rotation at the position will certainly be needed throughout the remaining SEC schedule.

Without question, the youth of these Tigers will need to be trusted to learn and mature on the job if LSU hopes to have a chance of getting wins against Kentucky, Ole Miss, Alabama, Arkansas, or Texas A&M. Miles and his staff have done an exemplary job of evaluating and drawing this collection of talent to Baton Rouge when the entire college football world would have welcomed them as royalty.

Now, three games behind Mississippi State in the West with five extremely difficult games to play, is the time to fully unleash them to allow their abilities to take over and flourish building toward a serious run next season.

THE KING OF ALL THE WILD THINGS

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No one player exemplifies the potential this class brings to the table better than Leonard Fournette. The brightest ray of hope from the past two weeks has been the emergence of this true freshman to the head of the backfield. He led the team in carries and rushing yards against both New Mexico State and Auburn, although rushing opportunities on The Plains were limited due to the lopsided early score.

But Fournette truly answered the call at The Swamp, as he was the workhorse that allowed the offense to grind out a win against a tough Gator defense. He carried the ball 27 times for a career high 140 yards, averaging over 5 yards per carry and finding the end zone twice. He ran hard and punished Florida defenders throughout the night, but also began to show the vision and elusiveness that made him such a highly touted prospect out of high school.

The game certainly appears to be slowing down for Fournette, and he is approaching the point in the season when he will no longer be considered inexperienced. He and fellow classmate Darrel Williams have shown that the future of the LSU backfield is in very good hands once seniors Kenny Hilliard and Terrance Magee have moved on.

Now all that remains is showing that he can be counted on consistently every week. With three straight games at home in Death Valley, now is the time for Fournette to become the leader of this team and lead the charge of his classmates as they take on the most difficult part of the schedule.

"And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws."

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