If you follow this site, you have likely already programmed your smartphone with the Saturday 8PM kickoff for the epic SEC-showdown-de-facto-national-championship-semifinal LSU at Alabama. You may have done this in the preseason if you are truly a college football freak.

Alabama Crimson Tide defensive tackle Josh Chapman (99) sacks LSU Tigers quarterback Jarrett Lee (12) in last years 24-21 win - expect more defense in this one. (Icon SMI)
Many pixels and inkdots will be spilled on this matchup (rightfully so, and this website will be no different), but for the purposes of our exclusive BLITZIndex college football defense rankings let us look at just how good these two squads are playing in 2011.
Alabama puts this ranking in a headlock every week – for the third week straight they lead the nation in the three categories most important to fantasy college football – yards per play allowed (3.3), points per play allowed (26.3) and points per game allowed (6.9). LSU trails by just a tiger’s hair width ranking third fifth and third in the nation in the same stats.
For benchmarking, the national median average for each stat is 5.5 YPPL , 14.6 YPPT and 26.4 PPG. It is fair to say that both the Crimson Tide defense and the LSU Tiger defense are about twice as good as the national average which is pretty impressive given the SEC schedule.
But could they stop Case Keenum? We will never know…unless the Houston Cougars go undefeated.
The BLITZIndex Top 30 (alphabetical sort to help you set your fantasy lineup here BLITZIndex_31OCT11_alpha)
DEF RANK BLITZIndex 31OCT11
1 Alabama
2 LSU
2 Temple
4 Penn St.
5 Louisville
5 Virginia Tech
7 UCF
7 Wisconsin
9 Mississippi St.
9 Boise St.
11 Southern Miss.
12 Florida St.
13 Michigan St.
13 Illinois
13 Stanford
16 South Carolina
16 Oklahoma
18 Oregon
19 Ohio St.
19 Cincinnati
21 Arkansas St.
22 Michigan
23 Ohio
24 Utah
25 Florida
26 Notre Dame
27 Rutgers
28 Purdue
29 Pittsburgh
30 Arizona St.