Much of the off-season talk for the LSU Tigers had been on the 5-star freshman Leonard Fournette. Ranked as the number one recruit in the nation, Fournette is likely to see the ball in his hands at many critical points this season and that will beginSaturday in Houston.
The game will likely come down to the other side of the ball with the defense and their ability to stop the run game of Wisconsin led by Melvin Gordon, who reached the heights Tiger fans hope Fournette does one day.
Splitting time with Sr. James White, Gordon had himself a year for the record books. His 7.8 yards per carry has a chance to break an NCAA career YPC record this season. He totaled over 1600 yards to go along with 12 trips to the end zone.
A season with those kind of numbers usually translates into a high level of pre-season hype going into the next year, and this is the case for Gordon. He was named to a number of All-American preseason honors and is near the top, if not at the top, for Heisman Trophy chatter.
The LSU Defense is expected to be one of the better in recent years and the opening test will go along way into evaluating what we can expect from the Tigers this season.