LSU Football: Tigers receive respectable ranking in PFF top 130

LSU football is one of the biggest wildcard programs in the country entering the 2021 season.

The Tigers finished with a 5-5 record in 2020, which was a big letdown after going 15-0 and winning a national championship in 2019.

But while LSU’s 5-5 record last season was disappointing, there were signs near the end of the season that indicated that Ed Orgeron’s program is ready to return to dominance in 2021.

Back-to-back wins over Florida and Ole Miss allowed LSU to finish the season on a high note.

Of course, the Tigers actually have to prove it on the field first. And for now, no one knows if LSU will be a national championship contender this season, or if they’ll simply be a middle-of-the-road SEC West team.

PFF is feeling good about LSU football in 2021

Pro Football Focus revealed their top 130 ELO rankings earlier this spring and it appears that the highly-regarded publication feels fairly confident about LSU in 2021.

(PFF’s ELO rankings are compiled using various college football metrics and results from simulations.)

According to PFF’s rankings, the Tigers are the No. 10 program in the country entering the 2021 season. They have a 2 percent chance of winning a national championship and a 6 percent chance of winning the SEC.

(By comparison, Alabama has a 23 percent chance of winning a national championship and a 51 percent chance of winning the SEC, while Auburn has a 0.0 percent chance of winning a national championship and a 1 percent chance of winning the SEC.)

Here’s what PFF had to say about LSU in 2021:

"LSU is once again looking like a dangerous team being overlooked by most of the betting market. If Derek Stingley Jr. returns to his 2019 form, he will join Eli Ricks to form one of the best cornerback tandems in the country.Max Johnson showed enough on 177 dropbacks in his freshman season to have LSU fans excited about another potential championship run. The team is tied for the sixth-shortest odds at DraftKings and has the fourth-lowest odds to win the SEC title. With quarterback questions for the other top teams except Georgia, the SEC could be wide-open for the Tigers to once again emerge."

This feels like a reasonable ranking. It’s clear LSU has the talent to compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff (the Tigers’ last three recruiting classes have been ranked in the top five), but it’s also obvious that the program has a lot to prove after a slow start to the 2020 season.