By the time you're reading this, Brian Kelly and LSU will likely be on a bus heading north to Tuscaloosa to get ready for the biggest game of the season against Alabama. As it stands right now, the Tigers are missing a few key players on the defensive side of the ball, but overall, they're looking pretty healthy.
We already knew this, but LSU's star defensive tackle, Mekhi Wingo, is out for the Alabama game and the remainder of the regular season. With No. 18 out, the Tigers will look for Maason Smith to have a big game alongside guys like Jordan Jefferson and Paris Shand. Wingo has been the Tigers sack leader up until this point, so not having him is a big hit to the defensive line, but Brian Kelly is confident Jefferson and company can step in and provide a spark on the interior of the defensive line.
We also already knew that Zy Alexander, Deuce Chestnut and Denver Harris are going to miss this game. I'll spare you the time because we've talked about this a lot, but LSU is going to depend on a lot of young corners to play well against Nick Saban's Crimson Tide.
On the offensive side of the ball, the big name who was in some (although not very much) danger of missing this game was right tackle, Emery Jones. He suffered a high ankle sprain against Auburn and was replace by freshman Zalance Heard. Luckily, Jones is fully healthy and was not given an injury designation for this week, so LSU will have their full offensive line intact.
There was never any risk of tight end Mason Taylor missing this game, but he said during his media availability on Tuesday that the bye week has helped his ankle get pretty close to 100%. If you remember, Taylor suffered an ankle sprain against Grambling earlier this year, and while he's been back on the field for a while, he said he didn't fully trust his ankle, so the two weeks of rest has him back close to 100%.
Kelly said that nobody new has popped up on the injury report during the last two weeks of practice. The Tigers had a little rest, doing about 70% of their normal practice load during the open week before returning to regularly scheduled practice this week.
It looks like the bye week came at the perfect time for the Tigers. Everyone who had some short term injuries are no longer on the injury report, and anyone who was a little banged up and bruised got time to heal. We should be in for a good game this week, so use Friday to prepare yourself for what will likely be a tightly contested ball game on Saturday.
