Play Of The Day For Game Of The Week

Alabama vs. LSU, 7:30 ET

If you listen to pretty much any media broadcast, their job is to hype up games for people. The more eyes on a game, the more money they can charge for commercials. Even when a juggernaut plays a bottom-tier school, they will try and complement the bottom school because they want to create intrigue. Most of this is artificial. You won't need any artificial hype for this game between Alabama and LSU because whoever wins this game is likely out of the College Football Playoffs.

Alabama comes into the game ranked 11th in the country, and we have to expect the top-12 teams will make the playoffs. They are not near the top of the standings in the SEC and aren't going to be guaranteed a bid to the playoffs. While the winner of the SEC will get a top spot, it might be hard for Alabama to even make it to the SEC championship game. Their losses this season have come against Vanderbilt and Tennessee. Losing to Vanderbilt was a bit of a shock, but was a bad spot for them as they were in a let-down spot after beating Georgia the previous week. South Carolina was the team they played next and they barely escaped with a win in that one. The following week, they went to Tennessee. This was a tough game as Tennessee is certainly one of the best teams in the country, and Alabama lost by 7-points. Last week they got back on track against Mizzou and beat them 34-0. This is more like the Alabama team we expected at the start of the year. Simply put, they have to win the game against LSU today because if they don't, I can't imagine that they get into the playoffs.

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA - OCTOBER 12: Garrett Nussmeier #13 of the LSU Tigers celebrates during the first half of a game against the Ole Miss Rebels at Tiger Stadium on October 12, 2024 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images)

LSU has had a nice campaign themselves going 6-2 for the season and 3-1 within the conference. They are head of Alabama in the SEC standings and are a fringe playoff team sitting at the #15 rank in the country. Just keep in mind, the rankings right now don't always align with who will be in and out of the playoffs, for example, the top-12 teams from the poll may not be the 12 teams that make the playoffs. Garrett Nussmeier, the quarterback from LSU will need to protect the ball against a good, but beatable, Alabama secondary. He has 2,627 passing yards for the year with 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions. A balanced attack will be the best approach, but there are going to be key moments that Nussmeier will need to find his receivers in order to give LSU a chance today. They are coming off of a loss against Texas A&M, one of their first true tests of the season, and they lost that game by 15. They did play USC to open the year and lost that game, and they beat OIe Miss a couple of weeks ago in their only other ranked matchups. 

LSU isn't a bad team by any means, but I think this is one of the games you'll see Alabama pull out all the stops. They know what is at stake here and if I am going to the betting window with a team that needs to win a game, I'll back Alabama over LSU. I think this will be more of a playoff style game where every play matters so the under is also a compelling bet. I'm going to take a unit and split it between Alabama -2.5 and the under 58.5. 

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