Texas traveling to Baton Rouge for a primetime game under the lights against LSU with postseason implications is exactly what those in power wanted when the Longhorns joined the SEC, and they will get exactly that this week. The Longhorns have won four straight, and they will play their second consecutive road game after beating Missouri, 34-20, in CoMo last week. Meanwhile, LSU is off a home loss against Alabama, 31-13, despite outgaining the Tide 457-285. For what it’s worth, the Tigers haven’t lost consecutive home games in a decade.
LSU is facing postseason elimination in this game, and while that’s not a predictive metric by any means, I like their chances of defending their home field and fighting to live another week in the College Football Playoff race. Playing two straight road games in this conference is not easy, and that’s before factoring in playing in Death Valley at night on the tail end of a back-to-back.
As of Wednesday night, Texas seems to be a popular underdog ahead of Saturday’s card, yet oddsmakers don’t seem to want to leave -3.5s on the board for very long, while -3s seem like a pipedream. It’s surprising to see Texas attracting so much early attention in the market given the Longhorns’ issues up front, where they are 125th or worse in stuff rate, line yards and havoc allowed outside of garbage time since Week 5. That’s led to an inefficient offense that ranks 100th in PPA per play and success rate in that span, as well as 81st in yards per play this season. On paper, it’s a great matchup for LSU’s defensive front, which is top-five in sacks and top-12 in tackles for loss (CFBStats). This is the type of game in which Texas will really miss left tackle Trevor Goosby.
Arch Manning hasn’t exactly been good under pressure in his time as Texas’ starter, posting 19 turnover-worthy plays in such situations since the start of last season. He likes to throw deep, but this LSU defense has been elite over the last six weeks in pass explosiveness, while it’s top-25 in passes of at least 20 yards allowed over the course of the entire season. Last week was the first game in which Manning had fewer than two turnover-worthy plays since the Tennessee game in Week 4, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a crucial turnover or two from Arch here.
LSU is not without flaws, but the Tigers have been much better up front than the ‘Horns, and they’ve been much more efficient offensively barring last week’s performance and the first half against Ole Miss. Dating back to last season and prior to last week, Texas was winless against the spread in road games in Arch’s starting tenure, and I fear backing the Longhorns in this specific matchup would be falling into a bit of a recency-bias trap. I’m laying the points with the fighting Lane Kiffins here; Kiffin seems to get the most out of his guys in these primetime home games.
Texas vs LSU prediction: LSU Tigers -4 (-109) at the time of publishing. Playable to -120.
