Brian Kelly and the No. 14 ranked LSU Tigers return to Death Valley on Saturday night with the program preparing for a non-conference clash against South Alabama.

The Jaguars head to town led by a fiery offensive duo of Gio Lopez and Fluff Bothwell propelling the program to a hot start this season.

A scoring tandem that has elevated South Alabama to one of the top offenses in the country, they’ll put LSU to the test in a Week 5 battle.

Here’s how to watch, the betting lines and an expert score prediction via the SP+ Model:

Date: Saturday, September 28, 2024
Time: 6:45 p.m. CT
TV Channel: SEC Network
City: Baton Rouge, La.
Venue: Tiger Stadium

LSU: -21.5 (-110)
South Alabama: +21.5 (-110)

LSU to Win: – -1650
South Alabama to Win: +950

Over 65.5 Points: -110
Under 65.5 Points: -110

*All odds via DraftKings*

We turned to the SP+ Prediction Model to give a better understanding of where the Tigers stand heading into this weekend against South Alabama.

The simulation favors Brian Kelly and the LSU Tigers to come out on top over South Alabama in Week 5, as expected.

SP+ logged a prediction that LSU will defeat the Jaguars by a projected score of 42-23 and win the game by an expected 18.7 points.

The expert model gives the Bayou Bengals an 88% chance to come out on top over the Jaguars in Death Valley.

What is SP+? It is a “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that attempts to predict game outcomes by measuring “the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football.”

The SP+ model is 105-91-1 against the spread with a 53.6 win percentage on the year with the latest round of predictions coming out this week.

First-place votes in parentheses

1. Texas (44)
2. Georgia (13)
3. Ohio State (5)
4. Alabama
5. Tennessee
6. Ole Miss
7. Miami
8. Oregon
9. Penn State
10. Utah
11. Missouri
12. Michigan
13. USC
14. LSU
15. Louisville
16. Notre Dame
17. Clemson
18. Iowa State
19. Illinois
20. Oklahoma State
21. Oklahoma
22. BYU
23. Kansas State
24. Texas A&M
25. Boise State

Instant Takeaways: No. 16 LSU Takes Down UCLA 34-17 in Big-Time Victory

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Nick Saban Calls LSU Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier a “Sleeper” Ahead of 2024 Season

Follow Zack Nagy on Twitter: @znagy20 and LSU Tigers On SI: @LSUTigersSI for all coverage surrounding the LSU program.

As Hurricane Helene takes aim at Florida,certain to bring effects into Alabama as well, let’s sink into some more certain news.

Also, if you’re a fan of comic cons or pro wrestling, you definitely want to check out today’s podcast episode.

Today’s report follows.

Ike

Momentum for a state ban

A Democrat’s bill to ban so-called Glock switches on the state level may see growing support among Republicans during the next legislative session, according to an AL.com report.

A Glock switch is a device that allows a semi-automatic pistol to perform like a fully automatic weapon, with a machine-gun spray of rounds being fired with a single trigger pull. At least one was used in last weekend’s Birmingham mass shooting that killed four people and wounded 17 others.

The bill is being sponsored by Alabama state Rep. Phillip Ensler, a Montgomery Democrat, for the third time. Earlier this year it passed the House of Representatives but never got a vote in the Senate.

Next year odds seem good for the bill once again in the House. Key Republicans with law-enforcement backgrounds have signed on as co-sponsors.

In the Senate, Rules Committee Chair Jabo Waggoner, a Vestavia Hills Republican, said he’s ready to support a ban. Eight Republicans had confirmed to AL.com they’re behind it.

Some are more hesitant. Sen. Chris Elliott, a Josephine Republican, pointed out that Glock switches are already illegal, banned by federal law.

Supporters of the bill counter that, currently, if an officer finds you in possession of the device he or she has to turn the case over to the feds, who then decide whether or not they want to prosecute. With this bill, district attorneys in Alabama can go ahead and prosecute.

The legislation makes possession of the device a Class C felony that can get you 1 to 10 years in prison.

Campus purchase

The former institution of higher learning Birmingham-Southern College has a deal to sell its campus in Birmingham. The buyer, reports AL.com’s Hannah Denham, is another Birmingham school, Miles College.

How much are they paying and what are they going to ultimately do with the campus? We don’t know yet. But $16.5 million will come off the top to settle a debt with ServisFirst.

The two campuses are only six miles apart. Miles said both boards of trustees voted unanimously on the deal.

Stimpson’s tenure

Mobile’s longtime mayor won’t seek re-election in 2025, reports AL.com’s Patrick Darrington.

Sandy Stimpson was first elected mayor back in 2013, the year of the Kick Six, and he is currently serving out his third four-year term.

During that time, thanks to some annexations, Mobile grew to become the second most populous city in the state, leaping over Montgomery and Birmingham and looking up only to Huntsville.

Lunch with Trump

For a guy who has a diamonds-and-gold front door on his three-floor Central Park apartment, former president Donald Trump is anything butostentatious about his road food.

You may recall when the Clemson football team visited the White House in 2019 to celebrate a national championship (doesn’t Clemson winning the national title seem more distant than that?). That was during a government shutdown, so President Trump popped for fast food.

That wasn’t a billionaire being cheap. It was a billionaire in his culinary wheelhouse.

AL.com’s Carol Robinson reports that during Trump’s visit to this Saturday’s Alabama-Georgia game at Bryant-Denny Stadium, he put in the food-request for himself and his guests. On the order? Two McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches with cheese, stadium hotdogs, Domino’s pizza and Diet Coke.

He ought to ditch Mar-a-Lago and move to Dothan. The access to fast food on Ross Clark Circle blows away all that frou-frou Palm Beach dining.

U.S. Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville are supposed to join the GOP presidential nominee at the ballgame.

Quoting

“It’s not scary that they’re here. It’s scary that there are so many unknowns.”

Alabama state Sen. Keith Kelly, who joined other state lawmakers in another public meeting in Sylacauga regarding Haitian migrants.

More Alabama News

Born on This Date

In 1899, composer William L. Dawson of Anniston.

In 1917, jazz trumpet player Nelson “Cadillac” Williams of Montgomery.

In 1932, astronaut Clifton Williams of Mobile.

On the podcast

Guest Joe Crowe is gonna tell us all about Alabama Comic Con and the local rasslin’ scene.

You can find “Down in Alabama” wherever you get your podcasts, including these places:

Nick Saban is all over Athens. Kirby Smart saw to that.

The man who won six national titles in Tuscaloosa can be found when you look at Georgia’s gleaming Payne Indoor Facility. He’s around when Bulldog freshmen don’t speak to media, and when the team takes the practice field in the afternoon despite the September heat.

The expectations are similar. The on-field product is similar.

The fear opponents feel when having to face the SEC’s ruling juggernauts is almost exactly the same.

“With Georgia and with Bama, 80% of the games those two teams play, the opponent is beat before the first kickoff,” former Crimson Tide quarterback and current ESPN analyst Greg McElroy said. “They really are. They look across the field and they see guys that are enormous. They look crazy athletic.”

Athens even has the familiar traffic barrels littering roads around town, much like Tuscaloosa. Those are a sign of construction, brought on, in part, by the growth from students coming to school for the football juggernaut.

“My 12-year-old son and his friend had a lemonade stand a few weeks ago,” Athens- Clarke County mayor Kelly Girtz told AL.com. “They probably did better than they would have done 15 years ago.”

Smart followed Saban’s blueprint to a T. He built Georgia to be as close an approximation to the Alabama dynasty as can be.

But when Smart returns to Tuscaloosa on Saturday, for only the second time since departing, the original won’t be one the other sideline to meet him.

‘Being around coach Saban’

Smart held off taking a head coaching job for years longer than he needed to. The opportunities were there for Alabama’s defensive coordinator, but he held out for the right situation.

“A lot of people have said, why not take a smaller school head job?” Smart said at his UGA introductory press conference in 2015. ” I honestly feel my growth was better being in a large program, being around Coach Saban and learning how to manage a lot of the tough situations you deal with.”

He started building like Saban immediately. Both figuratively, in talent acquisition and on-field scheme, and literally, forcing UGA to begin construction and modernize its facilities.

Jeremy Pruitt, then the Bulldog defensive coordinator, told media in 2014 that teams were using the program’s lack of a top indoor facility against it on the recruiting trail. The wheels began moving just before Smart took over, but he participated in the groundbreaking for the building in 2016.

That was just the beginning. Georgia renovated the west end of Sanford Stadium, building a new locker room, recruiting lounge, medical facilities and more.

Internally, he copied Saban as well. Smart has an army of support staffers, and the recruiting ability to fill a roster with five-stars.

Saban’s greatest trick was turning a dysfunctional program with endless potential into a dynasty. Smart has nearly done the same, winning two national titles so far, flipping a constant nearly-there UGA team into a perennial contender.

For several years, the two schools sat atop the league together, with Saban getting the last laugh in the 2023 SEC championship game. Smart was evidence that Saban’s dynasty blueprint could work if applied correctly.

Then, in January, Saban retired. Georgia was built in Alabama’s image, but the blueprint is gone now.

‘Don’t expect it to be strange’

Smart has only returned to Bryant-Denny Stadium once since he left. That was in 2020, Alabama’s last undefeated national title season, and it was in front of less than 20,000 fans due to pandemic restrictions.

This time around, his old boss, the man he worked under for 11 years won’t be on the other sideline.

“I don’t expect it to be strange,” Smart said Monday. “I mean, that’s just the normal course of progression. I think it’s strange going back there, sometimes because I lived there and our kids were born there and lived there for nine years and had such great experiences there. But we had that in COVID, it was more strange then.”

DeBoer got to town and made changes. Superstar freshman Ryan Williams has spoken to reporters, Alabama moved practice to the mornings, and music rings out over the fields.

Even the defense that Saban built is gone, in favor of Kane Wommack’s 4-2-5 “Swarm-D.”

Old Alabama is already gone. Georgia is its closest approximation in the modern game.

Smart even has learned to adapt like Saban, a trait that set his mentor apart from anyone else in the game.

“Georgia to me feels a lot like 2020 Bama,” McElroy said. “Not so much like the early versions of Bama. The early versions of Bama aren’t really that similar to what this Georgia team is. The early versions of Bama, frankly, it’s kind of similar to what Georgia was in Kirby’s very first couple years with Sony Michel and Nick Chubb and running the rock.”

If Saban wasn’t 72 years old, perhaps he’d have stuck around, figured out the modern era of college football, just like he did when he hired Lane Kiffin to modernize his offense on the way to two more national championships.

Instead, the throne is vacant. If Smart is going to ascend to the heights Saban reached, it should start now.

Though of course, Alabama might not be done yet.

‘They’re a different staff’

The Saban way has worked at both Alabama and Georgia. But it’s not the only way.

“I don’t know their game plan,” Smart said. “So I don’t know how similar it’ll be or different it’ll be. I mean, we’re a different team. They’re a different team. They’re a different staff. We’re a similar staff. So I can’t compare last year’s game to this year’s game.”

Alabama is different, but the roster is still exceptional, and DeBoer has a history of winning. He’s treated Saban’s legacy as something to be celebrated, but has changed the Crimson Tide to his liking, from the morning practices, to the rescheduled Walk of Champions, captain Cs on the uniforms and full-on embrace of NIL.

It’s worked so far. Alabama has a top-two recruiting class coming for the class of 2025, and sits at 3-0, fourth in the nation.

Saturday’s game will be a measuring stick for both programs, their first big test of 2024. Perhaps the Crimson Tide won’t fall into the abyss without Saban.

The UA faithful are hopeful at least.

“Ultimately, we’ll all find out together,” Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox said. “But I think he’s made winning at Alabama something that’s been institutionalized.”

Alabama players certainly weren’t shaking over the prospect of facing the No. 1 Bulldogs.

“The cliche motto is, it’s all about us,” quarterback Jalen Milroe said Tuesday. “That’s so true, especially when it comes to improving as a football team.”

The microscope will be on Tuscaloosa for the 6:30 p.m. CT game Saturday. College Gameday will be there, as will a former president, and the battle between new and old Alabama gets a primetime slot on ABC.

For the Tide, it’s a chance to show it can still thrive without the man who built the machine. For Smart, an opportunity to show Georgia is college football’s preeminent power, even without Saban to emulate.

“It’s the reason kids wanna come to Georgia,” Sart said “They say, ‘I wanna play in games like that.’ Most viewed game two weeks ago Saturday night was our game. It’s gonna probably be that way this Saturday night. When you start looking at it, kids wanna have an opportunity to play in those type games. And we’re gonna have more of them after this.”