LSU, Alabama now leading SEC offensive evolution
Ball control and dominating defense is out for top programs
BATON ROUGE, La. — No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 LSU are in the process of turning long-held perceptions of the Southeastern Conference upside down.
They are the highest-scoring teams in the nation at the midway point of this college football season. That should shatter any lingering notions that the SEC features stifling defense and ballcontrol offenses heavy on smashmouth runs.
“If you tell a guy to go huddle, you’d have to explain what a huddle is nowadays,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron joked this week while discussing a transformation in his offense, which has produced a nation’s best 52.5 points per game this season for the unbeaten Tigers (6-0).
No. 1 Alabama (6-0) is averaging 51 points per game, slightly ahead of Oklahoma (50.2) for second nationally.
These are the same two teams that famously played to a 9-6 struggle won by LSU in 2011 — an overtime game in which not one touchdown was scored by either team. And the SEC is the conference that as recently as 2008 had a 3-2 final score — albeit in bad weather — with Auburn edging Mississippi State.
Given the cyclical nature of football, perhaps the SEC will see such results again someday. But probably not in the near future.
“Everybody’s trying to evolve to be more open, spread, distribute the ball,” Florida defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. “That’s why you’re probably looking relative to five years ago probably numbers are up as far as offensive production and things like that.”
Alabama coach Nick Saban was quick to point out that the SEC has had prolific offenses well before this most recent trend, such as Steve Spurrier’s “Fun ‘N Gun” scheme with Florida, or Tennessee’s aerial attack when Peyton Manning was behind center.
But those appear to have been more exceptions than the norm in a conference that did not have a single quarterback taken in the first round of the NFL draft between 1976 and 1994, and hasn’t had two first-round QBs in the same year since 1952 (Vanderbilt’s Billy Wade and Kentucky’s Babe Parilli).
That streak seems bound to end next spring when LSU’s Joe Burrow and Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa — both currently seen as Heisman Trophy hopefuls — will be eligible for the NFL draft. Burrow, who’s completed 79.6 percent of his passes for 2,157 yards and
25 TDs, is on pace to break LSU single-season passing records for yards and touchdowns, among others.
TARGETING: The number of enforced targeting penalties is down 32% in the Football Bowl Subdivision compared with the first seven weeks of the 2018 season, the NCAA said Wednesday.
Targeting, the act of striking a defenseless opponent above the shoulders or using the crown of the helmet to contact an opponent, has been one of the college game’s biggest player-safety concerns for a decade.
There have been 132 targeting penalties called in the FBS. Of those, 83 were enforced and 49 were overturned on video review. There were 171 targeting penalties called at this point in 2018. Of those, 122 were enforced and 49 were overturned.
TENNESSEE: Coach Jeremy Pruitt says quarterback Brian Maurer’s status for the Volunteers’ Saturday matchup at No. 1 Alabama will be a game-time decision after the freshman sustained a concussion last week.