This wasn’t the season anyone expected, and I’m not just talking about COVID-19.

LSU won 15 games a season ago, hammering most everyone in their path on their way to the program’s 4th national championship. The season was the perfect storm: Joe Burrow, good in 2018 as a 1st-year starter, made a monster leap, putting together a season we’d never seen before on his way to a Heisman Trophy. Burrow threw for 5,761 yards and 60 touchdowns, an average of 4 touchdown passes a game, something we wondered if we’d ever see again. The LSU defense struggled early but came together late, limiting their final 5 opponents to just 18 points per game, plenty good enough when your offense scored fewer than 36 points just once all season. The entire football world saw just how loaded LSU was on NFL Draft day this spring, when the Tigers tied the single-school NCAA record with 14 players drafted and tied 2016 Ohio State for the most players drafted in the 1st 3 rounds (10).

With Burrow and that much talent gone, some return to earth was expected.

I just don’t think anyone thought LSU’s season would go as poorly as this. The Tigers suffered a stunning setback at home against Mississippi State to open the season and have struggled to get the train back on the tracks since.

It has been hard to watch LSU without thinking of Nick Saban’s maxim that “you don’t ever defend a national championship, you go win another one.” This Tigers team, down 14 NFL Draft picks and a number of other players who opted out due to COVID-19, including All-American wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, was called the “defending national champions” plenty of times in the past few months, but it was never going to be that football team. Some struggles and adjustments were inevitable. It was just never supposed to be this bad.

The Tigers stumble into Gainesville 3-5, losers of 3 of their past 4 games. None of the losses were by fewer than 13 points. Two of them — a 48-11 pasting at Auburn and a 55-17 home defeat to Alabama — were bloody affairs settled by halftime. The Tigers have found replacing the legendary Burrow nearly impossible, trying 3 players at the position without settling on 1. The team’s best playmaker, Terrace Marshall Jr., opted out a week ago before the Alabama game, and another, big tight end Arik Gilbert, may join him before LSU travels to Florida. The Tigers defense ranks 115th in college football, with only Vanderbilt worse in the SEC. That number includes a ranking of 119th against the pass, which means despite the presence of All-America corner Derek Stingley Jr., any discussion of LSU as “DBU” needs to be tabled for a while.

Worse, LSU’s troubles on the field have been compounded by allegations of repeated sexual misconduct by players off it, prompting an investigation that demands answers.

Amid all this turmoil, LSU must prepare for a 3rd consecutive top-10 opponent, the latest stop on what has become a “Get Revenge on LSU” regional tour.

The Gators had turned the attention to LSU by the 4th quarter of Saturday’s win over Tennessee, when Florida players began updating their Instagram stories with reminders of last year, when the Gators lost a tight, fun, back-and-forth game with LSU, 42-28, under the lights at Tiger Stadium. Florida players remember having cups thrown at them and other disrespect from the LSU faithful, and if social media accounts are any indication, Florida has had this game circled for a long time.

https://twitter.com/CampbellKyree13/status/1335662321289621506?s=20

Revenge games can be fun, and given what’s on deck for the Gators in Atlanta in less than 2 weeks, it’s probably good Florida has a game that is motivating in its own sense this Saturday. No matter the records, LSU-Florida is a special game, one that has morphed from fun but odd annual cross-divisional rivalry in the ’90s and early 2000s into one of college football’s most underappreciated, riveting rivalry games in the past decade-plus.

Since 2005, LSU and Florida have met as ranked teams 13 times. Saturday night’s matchup will mark only the 3rd time at least 1 team wasn’t ranked, and only once have the teams met with both out of the top 25. The Tigers and Gators have met as top-10 opponents 6 times since 2005 — only Alabama and LSU and Oklahoma and Texas have met as many or more times in that span with both teams in the top 10.

The games have tended to be close, with an average victory margin since 2005 of 10 points (that includes two 30-point blowouts) and 9 of the 15 contests decided by 1 score or less. There have been some incredibly memorable games, too, from Tim Tebow’s cell phone celebration and Jacob Hester and LSU’s 5 4th-down conversions in 2007, to LSU winning on a controversial, zany fake field goal in The Swamp in 2010, to Florida winning the SEC East on a goal-line stand in a game moved from The Swamp to Tiger Stadium due to a hurricane in 2016, to Brad Stewart’s game-clinching pick-6 of Burrow in 2018, to Burrow outdueling Kyle Trask in Baton Rouge a season ago. This is a fun game, one you sell to kids in recruiting and one that, no matter ranking or record, always seems to bring the best out of each side.

Dan Mullen knows it, and he added that Florida will have an even more special feeling this year knowing they are honoring a very special group of seniors playing their final game in The Swamp Saturday night.

“Obviously, we’re happy to win the SEC East because it means we’ve reached one of our season goals. Now we have to prepare for LSU, though, in a game that matters to players, and one that is also special because it is Senior Night, with all the added stuff that goes along with that,” Mullen said Monday.

“They have a lot of talent. They can score points in a hurry offensively, and even though they lost a lot of guys (from the championship team) and are a young football team, they have a tremendous amount of talent. We’re excited about the challenge they present and focused entirely on LSU because of it.”

Tigers coach Ed Orgeron shared the respect, noting that it’s a bit easier to motivate a team in a losing season when you play a special game against a team like Florida.

“It starts with their quarterback. He’s just outstanding. 38 touchdowns, 3 interceptions. He’s tough. Doesn’t rattle. We all saw last year how good he is when he came in and pushed us to the end in our place,” Orgeron told the media Monday.

“The tight end (Kyle Pitts) is a great player who gave us fits last year. We have to know where he is. They are fast, skilled. They have tremendous coaches. They teach technique and don’t beat themselves. It’s going to be a huge challenge for us, but our guys are excited about playing Florida. You are always excited about those games at a place like LSU.”

LSU’s record may take a little of the shine off the game this season. Just don’t tell that to the players who circle this game a year in advance. The country may not have as many eyes on the game this season, but that’s how this game became one of the nation’s best rivalries anyway: quietly, while no one was watching. If history is any guide, there will be bigger LSU-Florida games to come in the near future. It doesn’t mean Saturday’s isn’t special.