LSU faces stacked schedule

This year’s edition of the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game has a strange dichotomy.

While the game will immediately go into the pantheon of the biggest games in North Carolina’s football history, it represents nothing more for Louisiana State than the first big game of the season.

Coming from the Southeastern Conference, LSU is used to playing in games against the best teams in the country.

The Tigers have a Nov. 6 date with the No. 1 team in the country, Alabama, and their conference is widely recognized as the best and deepest in the nation.

In each of the last four years, the SEC champion played for the crystal football in the BCS National Championship game.

With that in mind, facing a depleted UNC squad that may be thinned by an NCAA investigation does not represent a game that was circled on the schedule.

For LSU head coach Les Miles, it would make little sense to try to anticipate the results from the NCAA investigation into UNC and base game plans along those assumptions.

With that in mind, LSU is preparing to play UNC as if all of its projected starters will be playing.

“We anticipate playing their very best team,” Miles said in a teleconference Monday. “The powers that be will make those decisions as needed. But frankly, we’re looking at their best team, and if the substitute comes in, that won’t change many of our calls.”

LSU’s senior class played in and won a national championship as freshmen. So forgive Miles if he sounds as if he is paying lip service to the season opener.

“We’re very honored to play in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game,” Miles said. “We’re looking forward to visiting the Georgia Dome again.”

To further the point, if LSU’s season goes as Tiger fans would like, this game would not even register as their biggest game in the Georgia Dome — the SEC Championship Game in December is also held in that venue.

That does not mean that LSU is looking past North Carolina.

The team that Miles has been looking at on film has given him some things to worry about.

“(North Carolina) has two running backs that can move the chains and they seem to have improved at quarterback,” Miles said. “They’re a well-conceived football team.

“Butch Davis has a good program. They’re well-coached, and they have a lot of talent.”

As it stands now, UNC represents the fourth-highest ranked team LSU is slated to face on the season, and UNC’s defense — if at full strength — would be one of the best LSU will see.

“Their defense is obviously one of those defenses that you play in this conference,” Miles said. “They have a number of NFL draft picks, and they play very sound and solid.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.