LSU vs. Louisville, Citrus Bowl 2016: Schedule, scores, and more

Lamar Jackson won the Heisman Trophy on Dec. 10. Three weeks later, the Louisville quarterback played LSU in the Citrus Bowl, and it went horribly.

Against LSU’s overwhelming pass rush, Jackson posted his lowest efficiency rating of the season, 84.6. He was 10-of-27 passing, for 153 yards, no touchdowns, and no interceptions. He had 26 runs for 33 yards, his lowest average of the season. That includes eight sacks at a cost of 64 yards. The Cardinals lost, 29-9, scoring their fewest points of the season.

Every college football media outlet has somebody who does bowl projections, or weekly-ish guesses on which teams will end up playing in which bowls. At SB Nation, it’s me, for no other reason than I started doing it years ago and wasn’t smart enough to stop. I’m occasionally OK at it.

Going back to my preseason guesses, let’s review what went the most sideways. I didn’t list specific records for each team (though I did pick each game beforehand as a starting point), so this is more about which teams ended up the most tiers’ worth of bowls away from where some idiot had put them.

When Major League Baseball installed a one-game wild card playoff before the actual playoffs, it brought out critics (yours truly included) who complained that a single-game elimination goes against the spirit of the sport. Everything in baseball involves multiple games, and building the randomness of a single game into the structure seemed unfair.

Everything in football is single-game. It is a logistical necessity, and it bakes an extra layer of chaos into the pie. There is no best-of-seven, and there is no coming back from a slow start or a 3-1 deficit.

LSU’s extremely strange season came to an end on Friday with a 29-9 win in the Citrus Bowl over Louisville.

The story of the game is two-fold. On one hand, LSU’s defense was led by linebacker Arden Key and absolutely snuffed Heisman winner Lamar Jackson. Similar to the Alabama game, the Tigers were able to display the fact that when they’re at their best, they can be absolutely elite.

Viewing info: 11 a.m. ET kickoff on ESPN, with online streaming at WatchESPN.

Wanna talk about it? LSU fans, join And the Valley Shook. Louisville fans, Card Chronicle.

Live box score: I like ESPN’s.

LSU 29, Louisville 9 (FINAL). Ed Orgeron is officially 1-0 as the Tigers’ full-time head coach, Lamar Jackson just had one of the roughest bowl games by a Heisman winner ever, LSU’s offense has another Heisman contender next year in Derrius Guice, and this defense could be nice and scary in 2017. A 394-220 yardage advantage for the Tigers, with eight sacks of Jackson.

LSU is without star running back Leonard Fournette, as of the weeks leading into the Citrus Bowl against Louisville. That’s OK, because backup Derrius Guice managed to go All-SEC anyway. He’s having another breakout game in the bowl, piling up a 70-yard TD and various other highlights, but this might be the visual that sticks:

Credit to Blanton Creque for sticking his nose in there and trying to become Joey Julius for a day. We will honor your memory.

Lamar Jackson’s day has been not very fun. In a nutshell, this safety about sums it up.

Jackson has been sacked five times in the first half against LSU, and things are looking a lot like they did during the loss against Houston. A talented and fast defense is just pinning its ears back and straight up coming after him as he runs for his life.

ESPN’s pregame injury report caused more than a few people to do a double take before the Citrus Bowl.

Louisville linebackers Henry Famurewa and James Hearns did indeed suffer gunshot wounds, forcing them to miss the game against LSU.

Four months ago, Leonard Fournette was the Heisman frontrunner, and Lamar Jackson was an intriguing talent who was going to present an interesting challenge to Bobby Petrino’s pro-style preferences.

Now their teams are facing off in the Citrus Bowl after a wild season for both. Jackson won the Heisman, and Fournette’s not even playing in the bowl, being replaced by star No. 2 back Derrius Guice.

This year’s Citrus Bowl looks like one of the most intriguing matchups of the bowl season, and it isn’t even part of the New Year’s Six bowl game this year. The timing of this game is just a little bit off — the Citrus Bowl has been played on New Year’s Day for the vast majority of years since the 1980s. But this year, it falls on New Year’s Eve, prior to the Playoff semifinal games getting underway.

LSU is looking to cap off a successful season under once-interim, now-permanent head coach Ed Orgeron, who led the Tigers to a 5-2 mark after LSU fired Les Miles. The Tiger offense will have to turn to running back Derrius Guice against the Louisville defense, as junior Leonard Fournette is not playing in the bowl to prepare for the upcoming NFL Draft. Fournette did play in LSU’s final game against Texas A&M on Thanksgiving.

Some of college football’s highest-profile running backs have announced they won’t play in bowl games this winter before leaving school and entering the NFL draft.

LSU junior Leonard Fournette said on Dec. 16 he’d skip the Dec. 31 Citrus Bowl against Louisville. Stanford junior Christian McCaffrey said three days later he’d follow suit and not play in the Dec. 30 Sun Bowl against North Carolina. A day after that, Baylor’s Shock Linwood, a senior, said he’d skip the Cactus Bowl against Boise State.

Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey and LSU’s Leonard Fournette, star running backs who’ve been injured at times this year, have chosen not to play in their teams’ bowl games this year in order to focus on the NFL draft. And oh, the hollering began!

Fournette’s choice to skip the Citrus Bowl against Louisville went over pretty well. Most people were aware he’d dealt with a bum ankle all year and had missed multiple games. Based on the reaction to McCaffrey sitting out the Sun Bowl against UNC, though, I don’t think most East Coasters realized he’s been hurt, too. He was hurt against Washington State, out against Notre Dame, and limited against Colorado.

The LSU Tigers are 5-2 straight up and against the spread in their last seven games against teams with winning records. The Tigers will try to earn another win against a tough foe this Saturday in the Citrus Bowl against the Louisville Cardinals.

LSU is a 3-point favorite in Orlando at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. In their last three games against ACC opponents, the Tigers are 0-3 ATS.

FPeak SEC occurred in late-October 2014.

When the College Football Playoff committee unveiled its inaugural midseason rankings, the league claimed four of the top six teams in the country: No. 1 Mississippi State, No. 3 Auburn, No. 4 Ole Miss, and No. 6 Alabama. At 6-1, No. 11 Georgia was within striking distance of a Playoff bid as well.

The Tigers are in the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl, so it makes sense that at some point this week they’d be served Buffalo Wild Wings chicken, perhaps even at an actual Buffalo Wild Wings. Guess what happened Tuesday night.

They ate a lot of chicken.

Both sides are right. Bowls are a cynical money-making exercise, an excuse for ESPN inventory, and an outdated way for all the wrong people to maintain some semblance of control over college football. They’re also happy, bonus football.

We are at both extremes in 2016. We once again had 80 bowl bids to give out and fewer than 80 bowl-eligible teams, a sure sign of bloat and excess. We’re also loaded with perhaps more interesting bowl matchups than we’ve ever seen.

Some of college football’s highest-profile running backs have announced, in rapid succession, that they won’t play in bowl games this winter before leaving school and entering the NFL draft.

LSU junior Leonard Fournette said on Dec. 16 he’d skip the Tigers’ Citrus Bowl against Louisville. Stanford junior Christian McCaffrey said three days later he’d follow suit and not play in the Cardinal’s Sun Bowl against North Carolina. A day after that, Baylor’s Shock Linwood, a senior, said he’d skip the Cactus Bowl against Boise State to focus on his draft prep, too. To some degree, we might be watching this become a trend.

LSU running back Leonard Fournette is skipping the Tigers’ Citrus Bowl game against Louisville this month to prepare for the NFL Draft. His college career is over a few weeks earlier than expected, to the chagrin of some in the NFL and college games. He won’t join his LSU teammates for a final game together, and that’s subjected Fournette to some criticism that he’s looking out solely for himself.

Fournette makes one point about this:

The hot topic Monday was Christian McCaffrey announcing he would forgo Stanford’s Sun Bowl tilt in order to prepare for the NFL Draft. The reason why is obvious: he doesn’t want to risk injury in an exhibition game. McCaffrey joined LSU running back Leonard Fournette as prominent players to choose this path this season. Another marquee player, Texas A&M’s Myles Garrett, announced he would suit up in his team’s bowl game.

Former South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore is behind them 100 percent.

Like everyone else, Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott has shared an opinion on the decisions by running backs Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey to skip their team’s middling bowl games and begin NFL draft prep early. It started like this:

McCaffrey’s skipping the Sun Bowl, one of the Pac-12’s lowest bowl bids, and Fournette’s skipping the Citrus, a bowl so second-tier, Steve Spurrier once mocked Tennessee for repeatedly playing in it. Elliott doesn’t view that as an excuse:

As bowl season rolls around in college football, draft-eligible juniors have to make a pretty big decision: to stay for their senior season or declare for the NFL draft.

With that decision comes another, apparently: whether or not to play in your team’s bowl game.

Friday afternoon is the perfect time for the good, old-fashioned news dump, and you bet Louisville hit us with one involving the Wake Forest game plan leaks story.

Galloway is suspended for the Citrus Bowl, and the ACC could levy additional sanctions whenever the conference’s investigation concludes. Louisville says it’s cooperating.

LSU’s Leonard Fournette announced earlier this month that he would forgo his senior season and head to the NFL.

On Friday, he announced that his LSU career is in fact over right now. The running back will miss LSU’s bowl game against Louisville in order to prepare for the draft.

College football is like dominoes. One play goes right, and a team finds itself in the Playoff. One goes wrong, and a coach is fired.

With the exception of Alabama, which lapped its conference, this year’s Playoff teams all got there in part because things went just barely right in critical situations. Others missed out because things went just barely wrong, even if they didn’t know it at the time. Elsewhere, surprising twists thrusted legacy programs into course-altering coaching changes. (And plenty of things we thought mattered a lot, like Tennessee’s many September comebacks or Texas’ win over Notre Dame, ultimately didn’t.)

All wagers at -110 odds unless otherwise noted. Visit Odds Shark for updated lines throughout each game week.

College football bowl games are a different beast for bettors. Sure, the typical handicapping elements apply. Offense and defense matter. But there are some key elements at play that don’t apply as much during the regular season.