Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the first installment of Crossfire, the newest weekly article and brainchild of dashright93berlin.  This will be our unique approach to tackling each week’s LSU game.  Each week we will have two writers take a look at LSU’s upcoming game for that weekend.  Here, we will have one writer will argue for why LSU WILL win, and another writer will tell you why they WON’T win.  The purpose of this is not to be negative or give LSU fans something to complain about, but to present both sides of the game and to give our readers what to look for from both teams.  This week, Jason will give us his reasons why LSU will win against UNC, and Jack will tell us why they will lose.

Enjoy and be sure to check in every week to see the newest installment of Crossfire.

Why LSU Will Win: 

 Being that this is the first game of the season and little is known about either team, all we really have to go by is last year’s performance and expected changes in personel and strategy.  What we know about UNC (pending investigations aside) is that they win with their stellar defense.  The offense is merely mediocre, with WR Greg Little being the lone big threat on the attack.  QB TJ Yates is an experienced yet average passer with little upside.  This team does just enough offensively to win and I feel LSU’s defense is fast and talented enough to keep them in check.  
 
The real battle will be when LSU has the ball.  The big debate over the offseason for Coach Les Miles and his staff has been regarding the blandness and ineffectiveness of the offense.  Miles brought in Florida wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales to be his passing coordinator and groom QB Jordan Jefferson into the quarterback he’s capable of being.  This will be a different LSU offense.  The three headed monster of Richard Murphy, Stevan Ridley and Michael Ford will be relied upon heavily and that 11th ranked SEC rushing attack from a year ago will become a thing of the past.  Jefferson will not be asked to do much, but with very strong WR’s in Terrance Toliver, Russell Shepard and Rueben Randle, he should have plenty of weapons to work with.  UNC is stacked on defense and led by four potential first round picks in DL’s Marvin Austin and Robert Quinn, LB Bruce Carter and S Deunta Williams.  This might to be a low scoring game.  However, I have full confidence that this LSU team made enough changes in the offseason to make their offense more explosive and built to handle upper echelon defenses like that of UNC.  LSU takes this one 24-10.

Why LSU Will Lose: 

This game comes down to one thing: Coaching.  North Carolina has it in bunches and LSU, well, simply doesn’t.  If this was the British Parliament, the LSU fanbase would have moved for a vote of no confidence at the end of last season instead of having to sit through another fumbling, bumbling year with the laughing stock of the SEC at the healm. 
 
It’s all well and good that LSU has a lot of talent, and I’m not going to dispute that.  But you know what?  LSU had a ton of talent the last two years as well and couldn’t get the job done.  This is because we run a simple, vanilla offense and never get the ball to any of our playmakers.  I’m thrilled to know that we have Rueben Randle, Terrance Toliver (Tea Time), and Shepard, but we had all of these guys last year and they could never seem to touch the ball.  The most telling thing for me to hear this spring was Patrick Peterson, probably the best cornerback in the NCAA, saying he could not guard Rueban Randle.  But yet, Randle last year got a total of 11 touches.  That doesn’t inspire confidence.  And since the same crew is back running the show this year, I have no reason to think its going to change.  I don’t really believe just having a new WR coach is going to change up our offense or our playcalling unless Billy Gonzales is really our super secret offensive coordinator. 
 
My problem in picking LSU to win this game is that UNC has a great defense, which means this will most likely be a low scoring game.  Low scoring games require precision in the red zone for your rare scoring opportunities, dominating line play, and the ability to take advantage of the other teams mistakes.  Last year LSU was simply dreadful in the red zone converting touchdowns, only recovered 5 fumbles on the year, and was playing with an offensive line that made the Detroit Lions seem like a cohesive unit.  Further, I don’t think any Tiger fan in their right mind thinks that if we are down 13-7 at the end of the game, on our 20 yard line with 2 minutes to go that Les and Gary Crowton will be able to draw up enough lucky plays to have us win the game. 
 
I love the Tigers, and I think Les Miles is a really nice guy, but this is the beginning of the end, and it starts with an opening game loss to UNC.  North Carolina 20, LSU 10.