Sports columnist Scott Rabalais gives his three takeaways from LSU coach Lane Kiffin’s news conference Monday to start Alabama week. The game between No. 15-ranked LSU (6-2, 3-2 SEC) and No. 9 Alabama (6-2, 4-2) is set for 2:30 p.m. Saturday on ABC from Tiger Stadium.
1. CHANGE THE CHANNEL
The season’s first College Football Playoff rankings come out at 6 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN. Kiffin sounded like he would rather his players stream the latest episode of “Off Campus” than see where the Tigers will be in the inaugural CFP top 25. “We don’t even talk about that. It’s going to move so much between now and the end of the year. So, play really well and win and you won’t have anything to worry about.”
2. PRAISING ALABAMA
Legendary Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was famous for making every opponent sound like the 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers. Kiffin mined a similar vein to describe this Alabama team. “They’ve got really great players on offense. The quarterback (Keelon Russell) has played awesome this year and is a problem because he can run the ball and is an elite thrower. They ran into two great defenses (Georgia and Tennessee), but they’re really well coached and have great schemes.”
3. EYE TO THE FUTURE
Kiffin clarified why he said earlier this season that LSU rosters will be better in the future than the one this season: “When we got here, we didn’t know our current players. We didn’t know how they would fit into our culture, who to bring back. Now we have all this information on them, so we’re going to make even better decisions. We’ll be able to evaluate portal players even better and the high school players coming in.”
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