Greg McElroy ponders whether LSU could still win SEC West

Behind Georgia (-155) and Alabama (+210), LSU has the third-highest odds (+1100) to win the 2023 SEC Championship.

With one conference loss at the midway point of the season, the Tigers sit in second place in the SEC West behind the Crimson Tide, who are the only team in the division that remains undefeated through six weeks.

With Alabama hitting its stride at the right time, are the Tigers worth putting your money on at this point in the season? ESPN’s Greg McElroy’s explanation might have you thinking twice.

“I think LSU is a really dangerous football team,” McElroy said on Wednesday. “When you play LSU, you have to be really comfortable winning a shootout. They’re a little bit like this year’s version of Tennessee. Remember last year? With Tennessee, if you wanted to score in the 50s, Tennessee was going to go there with you. … Your offense better be on fire if you’re playing against LSU.

“They are super dangerous, a team nobody wants to play but a team where you could get a lot of stat production offensively because their defense hasn’t shown me much to this point. I don’t trust them, but if they’re hot offensively — I’ll take LSU at [+1100].”

Whether those odds are worth taking at this point in the season remains to be seen, but McElroy’s point about the ridiculous amount of points LSU scores on a weekly basis cannot be argued, and it revolves around star quarterback Jayden Daniels.

On Saturday against Missouri, Daniels totaled 389 all-purpose yards and four total touchdowns in a gutsy 49-39 victory on the road. 

The week before, Daniels put up 414 passing yards, 99 rushing yards and five total touchdowns against Ole Miss in a losing effort. Since beginning SEC play, the offensive unit has scored 173 total points over their span of four conference games with an average of 43.3 points per outing.

These types of performances are becoming a weekly occurrence for Daniels and LSU and despite suffering two losses through six games, Daniels is looking more like a Heisman Trophy frontrunner each time he leads the Bayou Bengals out onto the gridiron.

Of course, more of the same is expected by the Tigers this weekend. Their past few performances have led the way to LSU opening as a 13-point (-550) betting favorite over Auburn ahead of Week 7’s SEC matchup inside Death Valley, per FanDuel SportsBook. The over/under total is set at 58.5 total points.