Let’s take a look at some stats, facts, notes, and links surrounding Monday Night’s BCS Championship Game between LSU and Ohio State.

1. LSU and Ohio State are both loaded with big-time NFL prospects, but LSU’s talent is a bit more seasoned. Mel Kiper, Jr. lists the top 5 seniors from around the nation at each position, as well as the top 5 juniors at each position. Both the Tigers and the Buckeyes have 8 players on the lists. But the year-to-year breakdown is interesting. LSU has 5 seniors and 3 juniors, while all 8 Ohio State players listed are juniors.
2. After starting the season with a non-lined rout of Youngstown State, Ohio State has had the following pointspread pattern. LWW LWW LWW LW. Of course, the SAT question type pattern doesn’t necessarily follow, but it is interesting.
3. If you call LSU’s game at Alabama and their SEC Championship Game win over Tennessee pushes, LSU is 1-7-2 against the spread in their last 10 games. The one universal pointspread cover they’ve had since their September 15th shutout win over MTSU was a blowout non-conference win over Louisiana Tech. Shoppers could have had LSU at -6.5 in the aforementioned Bama and Tennessee games that they won by 7. On the other hand, LSU backers betting at the wrong time in both of those games also could have lost, as I had the Vols +7.5 in LSU’s 7-point win.
4. When the Buckeyes finished their season two weeks before the Florida did last year, many felt the extra time off made them rusty. The same situation exists here. So far this bowl season, four Big Ten teams with seasons that ended on November 17th faced teams that played on December 1st, with Purdue, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Illinois going 2-2 both straight up and against the spread. Purdue, Michigan State, and Wisconsin were all within four points of the spread in their games while the Illini got slaughtered.
5. Ohio State linebacker (and captain) James Laurinaitis is the son of former wrestler “Road Warrior Animal”. His dad admits to steroid use but claims to have stopped when the WWE began testing.
6. The talk that the Buckeyes are a closer, more focused team than the club that got bludgeoned by Florida last year seems pretty legit, as does the suggestion that last year’s club was overly concerned with agents and draft positioning.
7. LSU lost a lot of key performers to injury during the year and are as healthy as they’ve been since the South Carolina game. Glenn Dorsey’s knee appears to be downright sprightly. His knee was injured on an illegal cut block in that game, which led Tommy Tuberville and the linemen involved to apologize.
8. LSU is the second most penalized team in all of Division 1-A. Last year’s championship game winner, Florida, was also the second most penalized team in college football.
9. The crowd will not be nearly as one-sided as it was in the Oklahoma-LSU BCS title game in this building in January, 2004. Ohio State has as extensive a national following as anyone, they travel big, and their fans know how to get tickets. That being said, there is certainly still a home field edge for the Tigers here.
10. According to a columnist in the Akron Beacon Journal, LSU’s status as 4-point favorite is not the studied judgment of the global sports betting marketplace, but has somehow been arranged by Jim Tressel.

Enjoy the game Monday night.