LSU bracing for a dogfight, a fist fight against Texas A&M

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The seven previous wins against Texas A&M -- “You can throw that out,” coach Ed Orgeron said.

The same goes for rankings. LSU is holding steady at No. 7 -- right on deck for a spot in the College Football Playoff picture should a team positioned ahead of it stumbles on the final weekend of the regular season. The same applies to point spreads. A&M is a 3-point home favorite, per OddsShark. That only matters to those in Las Vegas.

Orgeron’s focus is on collecting win No. 10, a benchmark set by the coaches and players back in August in a season where nationally, the Tigers were picked to flirt with a .500 record. Now, double-digit victories and a Jan. 1 date hang in the balance when LSU travels to Kyle Field for a Saturday night showdown.

In years past, this game has centered around job security or coaching auditions. Finally, this installment of the SEC West rivalry is about football.

“You know, No. 1, whether we beat them for many years they beat us has nothing to do with this game and we all know that,” Orgeron said. “They're going to use that as motivation and we will too, obviously. I don't know nothing about favored or not favored. I'm glad that they're favored. We do well as underdogs. I hope that puts a chip on our team's shoulder … Us being a top-10 team, we’ve got to play like it, and that has nothing to do with the game.”

“This is a rivalry game,” he continued. “You can throw out all the rankings, you can throw out all the point spreads. It's going to be about us taking care of the football.”

Perhaps the most glaring difference between the teams LSU has dominated the last seven meetings is the coach and the style of play he’s instituted over the past year. Fisher, a rumored candidate to be in Orgeron’s shoes over the past three years, has inspired toughness in his team -- so much so that he yanked a player’s facemask during in the midst of a game against Arkansas.

That mentality has translated to the entire football team, which enters Saturday’s tilt ranked No. 2 nationally in rush defense and No. 27 in total defense. The Aggies boast an offense predicated on the run game, good for No. 39 in the country and an offense overall that ranks No. 21 in total offense and No. 51 in scoring.

That style of play commands respect and quickly grabbed LSU’s attention.

“They’re really physical up front,” quarterback Joe Burrow said. “They have some really good defensive linemen, really good linebackers. We’re going to go in ready for a dogfight, ready for a fist fight, and if we don’t, we’ll get punched in the face.”

“We’ve played it,” he continued. “That’s what the SEC basically is every week, and if you’re not ready for it, it shows. It’s showed a couple of times when we weren’t ready. We need a good week of practice and we’ll go from there. You’ve got to stay intense. You can’t get complacent at this time of the season. You want to take a step back and relax, but you can’t do that this weekend. When you play a team like Texas A&M, you can’t go in with your hands down.”

Saturday will mark Burow’s eighth conference start. He enters the contest 5-2 and coming off a career-best game passing in a 42-10 rout of Rice. This will be his first time facing off against Texas A&M.

In contrast, tight end Foster Moreau has been a part of this series since he arrived at LSU in 2015. He’s helped his team get past the Aggies annually, in games where a regular-season victory was merely a secondary storyline.

LSU has usually held an edge when it comes to physicality in those matchups with Kevin Sumlin’s Aggies. Fisher’s stamp is evident and the team is bracing for a different sort of challenge.

“They’ve made great strides defensively to where their defensive linemen are not just pass-rushers; they’re also run-stoppers,” Moreau said. “That’s a really good team that we’re looking to go play this Saturday. It’ll be a good time.”

“They're one of the top teams in rush defense,” added center Lloyd Cushenberry III. “It’s a new staff, a new team, so it should be a good game. They’re just good all-around. They play good, solid team defense. I don’t think they have one star; they just play solid defense … We try to (play physically) every week. It may not happen all the time, but it’s our DNA at LSU. In the SEC, you have to be physical every week. That’s our mindset every week.”

That physicality has translated to lopsided scores against A&M under Orgeron and his predecessor Les Miles.

LSU’s offense, which averaged 28.3 points per game in 2016 when Orgeron was in the interim coach and Steve Ensminger was the interim offensive coordinator, doubled that production in a 52-39 audition for the full-time head coaching position amid rumors of Tom Herman accepting that same job.

Last year, Orgeron’s Tigers matched a season-high 45 points in a 24-point romping of the Aggies.

Even under Miles, LSU’s defense was the difference in these post-Thanksgiving bouts. In 2012 and 2013, Sumlin’s club averaged better than 44 points per game, but were held to a combined 29 points by the Tigers. In 2014, the Aggies -- averaging 35.2 points per game -- were limited to 17 points in a loss. In Miles’ job-saving performance on Nov. 28, 2015, his defense bottled up an A&M offense averaging almost 28 points per game in a 19-7 triumph.

If Fisher is the coach credited for instilling toughness into Texas A&M, then Mike Elko is the architect.

The first-year defensive coordinator of the Aggies was hand-picked by Fisher to run his defense after LSU’s Dave Aranda turned the position down. Elko last faced these Tigers a 11 months ago in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla., where his Notre Dame defense held LSU without a score on the first six drives, then prevented Derrius Guice from scoring at the goal line and forced a field-goal attempt.

“On defense, they're very solid. Their front four is very good. They run around and hit you on defense,” Orgeron said. “I'm telling you their scheme is fantastic. The way they use their guys, their front is big and they're physical, they're coaching them different … He's doing the same thing that he did at Notre Dame at Texas A&M. We talked to a lot of guys that they played and they felt that their scheme was their biggest strength. It's a completely different team.

“This is going to be a battle,” he continued. “This is not an old Texas A&M team that we played. This is a physical, tough team.”