Food for thought:
LSU, when healthy, has the best defense Ohio State will have faced this season.
LSU has the best offense Ohio State will have faced this season.
I doubt that sane Buckeye fans would dispute this.
Ohio State has the best defense LSU will have faced this season. Many Southern Football fans I know here in Tallahassee are greatly offended that there are people on the planet who believe such heresy. But I honestly don't see how a sane person would dispute it. Differential stats take quality of competition into consideration; and even in differential stats, Auburn is not within sniffing distance of the Buckeyes (and no other LSU opponent should even be in the discussion).
Then there is the
OSU offense. One could argue, based on differential stats, that there are at least 4 offenses better than Ohio State's that LSU has faced this year. For the upcoming preview I have put together some numbers that suggest this is an oversimplification, and that Ohio State is much better on offense than Tressel-Ball allows them to show. But getting back to the "any sane Buckeye fan" line of reasoning; Florida's offense is better than ours.
Long story short: Both offenses are facing their toughest test of the year, but only the Buckeye defense is facing their toughest test of the year. The LSU defense has seen better.
While this tends to suggest that LSU has an advantage here, the advantage for a more tested team usually comes from superior focus. I doubt that the Buckeyes are going to have any trouble focusing, either on their preparation or on the game.