First off, I feel bad for the kid, especially considering the kind of season he was having. I hope whatever injury he suffered is not serious. With that said, there is a decent chance we will not see him Saturday and instead get the LSU backup Nussmeier, and if you don't know anything about LSU this year, this changes everything. Daniels IS that team. Without him, they are just another offense. You saw it yesterday. Daniels just toying with Bama all game, then Nussmeier comes in and LSU can barely move the ball and is shutout. As for the LSU defense, they are bad. REALLY bad. We can absolutely score on them. Their secondary is awful, AND they are banged up. Pearsall and Wilson will have a field day this Saturday, mark my words.
We've seen this movie before. Remember earlier this season? "Cam Rising isn't playing....we'll be fine."
We will likely get bullied up front on both sides the next 3 games. We don't have much juice for making plays on D or takeaways which might create an edge. However fsu at home will be crazy so anything could happen that night.
Daniels may still play Nussmeier pretty good. He can throw it all day to Nabers and Thomas. Mason Taylor too. To win we have to run. Our best defense is a good offense that runs the ball and eats clock. We have to shorten games.
LSU has no defense. They got shredded by Bama, LSU and fsu. I expect UF to score a lot. Unfortunately, there is still defense and special teams to consider. Edit: ole miss that is.
Before anyone else tries to pile on the OP, the thread says he think we CAN win, not that we WILL win, if Daniels doesn't play. And I think that's fair. Daniels does a LOT for LSU, he bails them out of so many 3rd downs its ridiculous. LSU's offense is an order of magnitude easier to defend without the threat of his running. I wouldn't pick UF to win on Saturday, but UF should be able to score on their defense and maybe Nussmeier makes enough mistakes to give our defense a few stops and keep things close.
If Daniels can't play, the game might be a little closer, but their lines of scrimmage will dominate ours and we're still gonna get beat badly, IMO. We can count on special teams screwups, missed tackles and bad play calling to keep us from seriously challenging a better coached team. And I don't think Brian Kelly is a great coach by any means.
Nuss is a pretty damn good qb , he will be ready and they will have a good plan on offense . Florida will need to run the ball effectively. Looks like this will be a shootout
