Its very likely both teams will be Unbeaten and LSU has a chance to go to 3 after today. They would need to jump Oklahoma which is a coin flip if they will do that or not and with Clemson's awful SOS I think there's a good chance LSU jumps them sooner rather then later..
Btw - before I begin - I was assigned to LRAFB for four years, so I'm pretty familiar with N Little Rock (and loved Sherwood back in the day).
Although this will be the selling line....NO! An emphatic "no," this game is nothing at all like the 2011 game on multiple levels.
1) It is unlikely at this point the teams will be ranked 1 and 2.
I just don't really think that unless Clemson loses that they will drop, and Oklahoma will be rewarded for beating Texas so......it's unlikely.
2) We no longer have a two-team BCS national title game.
It was generally thought at the time of the 2011 game that it was probably a "winner take all" game with the loser on the outside looking in for the national championship. Although it didn't ultimately turn out that way, it was sheer luck that set up the rematch. If the Okie St Cowboys had not suddenly gotten depressed about the deaths of two basketball coaches that none of the players knew while leading 24-7 in Ames, Iowa, OK St would have played LSU that year.
3) By the time of the 2011 game, everyone was pretty well convinced LSU and Alabama were BY FAR the two best teams in the nation.
There were 5 unbeaten teams in the hunt plus Houston on November 5, 2011 - LSU, Alabama, Okie St, Stanford, and Boise St. The Smurfs were considered the longest of long shots, most folks thought OU would beat OK St, and most folks thought Oregon would blow out Stanford, which they did. The Pokes had already had two close calls, a one-point loss to ATM and K-State failing at the end of a 7-point Pokes win. So the perception ENTERING THE GAME was, "these are the two best teams in the country."
That is unlikely to happen by November 9 this year. It might, but a lot of folks are going to be touting Oklahoma and their new defense, and Clemson is still in the hunt so long as they're unbeaten.
4) At the time of the 2011 game, both teams had won recent national titles.
You rarely get this in the regular season anymore. In this case, you had 1 vs 2 and both teams had won a national title within the previous five years. Of course, that wasn't quite so rare once the SEC ran off that long streak, but it was the combination of the rankings, perception, and recent titles (plus my next point) that elevated the stature of the game.
5) The wounds of Nick Saban leaving LSU were still fresh in 2011 for the Tigers.
Those wounds were coming out in the form of "well, Saban actually put the team together that Miles won the national championship with, so...."
And then Saban waltzed into Red Stick and walked out an overtime winner, and the next year he won the national title.
The reality now is that Saban left LSU FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.....back when folks still thought Larry Coker was a good coach, Matt Leinart was a future NFL star, and Urban Meyer had yet to coach his first Power 5 conference game.
Concurrent with that were the fact that at the time Saban's successor (Les Miles) was still coaching the Tigers; he's not there now.
6) The SEC streak was only really starting to get ridiculous.
That long championship game appearances streak (2006-13) and wins (minus the Barn losing in 13) were only then in the process of happening.
Most fans understood 2010 Auburn was a case of a legendary superstar elevating an 8-5 team to great heights.
Most fans also understood that 2007 LSU's title was a musical chairs "luck of the draw" kind of thing.
The point, however, is there's not an SEC streak of playing in all the title games; there's just ONE TEAM from the SEC who keeps doing it (with the exception of UGA in 2017). The conference has come closer to the others in terms of perception (we might be perceived as the "best conference," but it's not more due to horrific mediocrity worse than our own elsewhere than the idea we have a bunch of great teams).
There are certainly some other sub-reasons, but the point is that those circumstances that made that hype inevitable no longer exist. The loser of this game is NOT going to be considered "automatically eliminated" in a three-point overtime loss.
