Way-too-early Top 25 projections for 2021 college football season

LSU fell flat in 2020 after winning the College Football Playoff national championship a year earlier. Ed Orgeron’s team lost the season opener by 10 to Mississippi State and never found its purchase, neither winning nor losing more than two games in a row over the course of a perfect regression back to the mean. AP voters are likely going to look at the 2020 performance as an aberration, given how well Orgeron and his staff have been recruiting in Baton Rouge.

If Myles Brennan returns healthy, the Tigers should be in fairly good shape at quarterback. Though he is no Joe Burrow, Brennan completed more than 60 percent of his 131 passes in 2020 for an average of 370 yards and nearly four touchdowns per game. Defense rather than offense is where the biggest gains can be realized after LSU gave up nearly 35 points and almost 500 yards per game. A more veteran unit should help improve those numbers.

So too should a schedule that doesn’t include a 10-game SEC slate. LSU opens the year with a date at the Rose Bowl against UCLA, their only Power Five opponent out of conference in 2021. The Tigers avoided Georgia in interdivisional play, and they get to play Florida at home in Death Valley. Texas A&M also comes to Tiger Stadium, though the Bayou Bengals do have to travel to Tuscaloosa to face the defending national champions.