Can No. 13 LSU rewrite its 2007 National Championship history? With four wins to their name this season, Brian Kelly’s side has reinforced his confidence that they can compete for the national championship this year. They have been able to address some of the pain points of last season with the defense showing slight improvements. However, the team will have its sternest test yet when they welcome the No.9 Ole Miss on Saturday.

LSU’s offense led the country last season in scoring and despite losing Jayden Daniels to the NFL draft, they have continued to show their prowess. The defensive side of things is what they needed to improve and there have been moves in that direction as well, having tallied the third-most sacks and recovered the third-most fumbles among SEC teams through the first six weeks. But there is more good news for the LSU fans, according to Josh Pate.

The LSU fans will fondly recall the 2007 season for their championship-winning exploits, but that season also went down in history as the Year of the Upset. Josh Pate brought up a tweet from ESPN’s Bill Connelly following a round of upsets in Week 6 and drew parallels with the ’07 season.

Josh Pate dug up the past in a YouTube episode on Josh Pate’s College Football Show on Thursday. He highlighted the tweet which read, “Top 10 teams losing to unranked opponents in the first 6 Weeks of the 2007 season: 9. Top 10 teams losing to unranked opponents in the first 6 Weeks of the 2024 season: 8. I’M JUST SAYING.”

Pate mentioned that this is the “first ingredient” for the LSU fans hoping to see a repeat of 2007. He displayed the stats from 17 years ago showcasing the upsets that occurred throughout that season.

• A ranked team lost to a lower-ranked or unranked opponent 62 times during the regular season
• The top 10 teams lost 29 times
• The No. 1 team lost four times
• The No. 2 team lost seven times, all in the final nine weeks of the season
• The No. 1 and No. 2 teams lost in the same week three teams, including in Weeks 13 and 14

Pate then dived into the “second ingredient” which according to him is essential for any “07 dreamers out there.” According to him that part has to come in the next weekend.

He said, “There is about a six-hour window coming at us Saturday evening/night, where if Texas goes down if Ohio goes down, if either one of them go down, but especially if both of them go down, we have hurled ourselves into the great unknown. Cause at the point everyone has looked vulnerable….So Ohio State falls, Texas falls, and maybe if Texas doesn’t this week, they do next week against Georgia.”

He then added, “We are very very close to having all the ingredients in place for ’07. ’07, you didn’t know. All the normalcy, all the normal things you could come to rely on, the bumpers so to speak on the bowling lane, the bumpers were removed. Anything could go in the gutter. Just like any preconceived notion you had, could go in the gutter. A two-loss team won the national championship, that’s the entire point.”

Entering Week 7, Texas and Ohio State have a 5-0 record and have looked dominant. Ohio State will face Oregon this weekend, who also boast a 5-0 record, but as Pate mentioned have looked “vulnerable.” Texas plays no.18 Oklahoma, who have a 4-1 record this season. Both games can go either way, but LSU fans will hope that Texas and Ohio suffer their first defeats of the season, which will open up the championship race.

In 2o07, LSU were the top-ranked team heading into Week 7, but fell to Kentucky. Four other ranked teams were put to the sword with a total of 6 upsets for the week. LSU also lost as the top-ranked team that year to Arkansas in Week 13. LSU fans will hope for a repeat of upsets while wishing their team comes out on top this weekend against Ole Miss.

Last season, the game between the two teams saw the worst defensive showing in LSU history, losing 55-49 to the Rebels, it showed how much ground LSU had to make up in order to compete for the title. The game on the weekend is a chance for them to display how far they have come, with Ole Miss possessing the country’s 10th-best scoring offense.

But again this season has already proven to be quite eventful as evidenced by the upsets in Week 6. This should fill Brian Kelly and his Tigers with some optimism.

College football upsets in Week 6

Unranked Arkansas delivered an upset over No. 4 Tennessee in a 19-14 victory last week. In Week 6, five top-25 teams lost to unranked programs with Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt as one of the biggest college football upsets ever. 

The SEC matchup between then No. 1 Alabama and underdog Vanderbilt saw the Commodores rewrite history as they broke their 40-year losing streak against the Crimson Tide in their stunning 40-35 win. No. 9 Missouri also faced a similar fate as they fell to Texas A&M in a huge 41-10 blowout.

A win against the Rebels for the Tigers will up their playoff odds with five wins against one loss. Success in that game if complemented by upsets elsewhere, especially in the Texas and Ohio games, will have the LSU fans dreaming of a first championship since 2019.