If they play at the end of the season, 2019 LSU would win this game by three scores. You just cannot hope to contain that offense, especially with a defense with some known weaknesses in the secondary. Auburn had an approach to contain the offense by being able to generate a pass rush only rushing three, but the SECCG proved even dropping 8-9 people into coverage with a decent pass rush still wasn’t enough anymore.

The LSU defense wasn’t bad either by the end of the season. Stetson and company just wouldn’t be able to keep up. The real question is how many times would LSU have a drive that didn’t result in a TD.

I think matching the 2021 UGA defense against 2019 LSU would be a much more fun thought experiment, although the problem remains the 2019 LSU was still going to throw up a lot of points and I doubt 2021 UGA could keep up in a shootout.

I still think 2020 Alabama is the only other national title team I can think of with the offensive talent to match 2019 LSU and maybe beat them in a neutral field, but I can’t help but feel like we saw exactly how that type of game would go down in 2019 in Tuscaloosa. Burrow and company just outclass everyone.

This post was edited on 1/15/23 at 11:35 am