LSU vs. Florida, It’s All About Bowl Positioning & Recruiting

LSU commands a three-game win streak over Florida as this perennially entertaining series reconvenes in The Swamp. It’s a fresh era with Brian Kelly and Billy Napier installed as new bosses and Corey Raymond switching sides.

Neither of these unranked 4-2 teams is a threat to win its division, so Saturday night’s game is about bowl positioning, recruiting momentum, and bragging privileges. To advance it, let’s turn to beat writers Brody Miller and G. Allan Taylor:

Let’s warm up with a softball about Noah Baumbach, who briefly became a thing on The Athletic’s Twitter. Sportswriters are permanently bonding over brisket and bourbon — which both have their place — but there aren’t as many press box conversations about the newest iteration of Woody Allen.

Taylor: In 1995, I saw “Kicking & Screaming” at Inwood in Dallas. I walked away with a crush on Oliva d’Abo and the urge to pair pajama tops with a corduroy sports coat. That was my indoctrination to deadpan Baumbach. I would’ve invited Brody to tag along, but it was the late movie, and he was 2. Our ages more appropriately intersected for “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” in 2009.

This is a college football roundtable, after all, so if I were to tap a Baumbach work as a metaphor for Florida’s program, it would be “The Life Aquatic,” because Steve Zissou has endured many lean years since his last acclaim and finds the quest complicated by a guy from Kentucky.

Miller: Worse, I was 1. To keep the analogies going, I’ll say the Brian Kelly iteration of LSU is the new movie coming out, “White Noise.