Who is LSU, Anyways?

Uh, just the defending national champions of college football, that's all.

The Bayou Bengals may have suffered a few humiliating losses this season at the hands of Florida and Georgia, but they still have very good skill players and have a core left from last season who still know a thing or two about winning.

Charles Scott has emerged as the biggest threat on the ground for the Tigers this season for a team that has all of a sudden gone from running back by committee to one solid guy. Scott is averaging 6.7 yards per carry this season with 11 touchdowns and 111 yards per game.

At quarterback, the picture is a little fuzzy. Jarrett Lee and Andrew Hatch have been sharing time all season, but that doesn't throw out the possibility of seeing freshman Jordan Jefferson take the field for the Fighting Tigers. Lee has seen the most action this season, completing 56% of his passes for 1427 yards on the season, but has a horrid touchdown to interceptions ratio at 12:10. He is also averaging one interception for every ten completions.

The true stars of LSU on offense are the wide receivers who can do some damage if Alabama allows Lee and company to get them the ball. LSU is led by Brandon LaFell and Demetrius Byrd at receiver. LaFell has been the go-to guy this season, having a majority of the catches, yards, and touchdowns.

On defense, LSU has lost a lot from last season, but is still very stout on the defensive line.

The defensive line has a two-headed monster in Rahim Alem and Tyson Jackson. Both of these guys will be cause for concern for the Alabama offensive line and may be the best tandem they will face all season. Alem is the team leader in sacks with six and Jackson has four and a half himself. Combined, these two have 15.5 tackles for loss this season.

After the line, the defense gets a little shaky.

The leading tackler on the team, Harry Coleman, only has 47 tackles on the season from the safety position. Perry Riley is the leading tackler among the linebackers with 37 tackles. The secondary has only caused four interceptions all season and has been picked apart by both Matthew Stafford and Tim Tebow. John Parker Wilson could easily do the same if play calling permits.

Overall, the LSU defense has only caused eight turnovers this season, well below the 36 this team caused last season.

Obviously the keys for Alabama will be to keep LSU out of the offensive backfield, prevent turnovers, and create some turnovers of their own.

Now, before I go and get ready for the trip to Baton Rouge and the turning of 21 in New Orleans, I found an interesting set of articles that reflects the two sides of Nick Saban: Alabama and LSU. Hope you enjoy and be on the lookout for picks out the wazoo tomorrow, but since one of the games picked by the CW Sports staff is tonight, here is one to help tide you over until tomorrow.

TCU @ Utah

The Utes are undefeated, the Horned Frogs have one loss, albeit to Oklahoma. For all intensive purposes, this is the Mountain West Championship Game with both teams undefeated in conference, top ten in the BCS, and BYU with already one loss at the hands of TCU earlier this season. Utah gets this game at home, and that will be the factor that gets them over the top and into the BCS.

Utah 27, TCU 24