I find it odd that there has not been a thread dedicated to the special teams play of this past weekend. For the past few years, if ever there was something to find fault with it was LSU's special teams play. After seeing this past weekend's game, I am VERY excited about the improved special teams play. Some of the bright spots of special teams play from this past weekend: - Kickoffs went into the endzone, no returns - Booming punts and excellent coverage - The blocked field goal returned for a td - The blocked punt returned for a td - All extra points made with ease (who was that guy kicking?) The lone sore spot: - The fake punt from own redzone. Successful but foolish. There has already been an entire thread on this play so no need to discuss it here. As for the return game.... With ASU's kicker booming kickoffs out of the endzone combined with their constant scoring, there really was no opportunity for our return game to get going. I am hopeful to see Skyler Green get back to his old form against UT. Overall I am VERY pleased to see that more time has been put into special teams. Those blocked kicks were far from luck. In years past LSU players would have been hesitant to even dive for the block, in apparent fear of a roughing penalty, for instance. They have obviously put a lot of work into this during the past off-season. As for the kicking game, simply outstanding! Lets hope that when we line up for our first field goal of the season that we are equally pleased with the effort and results! :geauxtige LSU! :tigerhead
I was very surprised by the turnaround by our special teams units. As much griping as there is about the defense, the change in s.t. was equally evident. Skyler's gotta find a way to catch kickoffs that are going out of the back of the endzone, though. Is it legal to climb up on the goal post to catch it??
actually LSU's coverage teams have always been excellent recently. it's the kicking game that gets flack and rightly so. i do like seeing blocks though. makes me miss arnold miller. it seemed he had a blocked xp every other game.
You are correct sir! The special teams other than the return teams have been very inconsistent in the past few years. It was quite refreshing to see LSU blocking kicks, touchbacks...etc. It's amazing how easily special teams misucues affect the outcome of games, especially early season games. And it's usually the teams that haven't played making the mistakes but this time it was Arizona State who was getting killed in that area. WHAT A WELCOME SIGHT! :lsup:
You couldn't really see it on ST, but when Skyler caught the ball you could see that he was able to make the cuts that he did in the 03 season. Once he gets the ball in the open field on a punt return we'll see the Skyler of old. I don't want to turn this into the other thread, but on the fake punt, its not like it would've been called if they had their gunners on Prude. The only way it is foolish is if Jackson can't make the throw.
I agree... I can't argue with something that worked... that is the "foolish" thing... But all-in-all, yeah, our special teams was great... I am glad we FINALLY did the right thing by letting Colt David do the PATs... All you need to do on a PAT is kick it nice and smooth to get it through, and Jackson and Gaudet tried to kill the ball and often went wide
Our ST won't make me too happy if our defense still looks the same against UT. I think Saban knew this and figured D was more important than ST and coached accordingly. Regardless if our ST play was good or not, we won A LOT of games under CNS. All I'm saying is that while our ST does look good, I'm still hoping our D gets better--our team depends on THAT. I do think that they'll get better though. BUT... the way Les Miles seems so satisfied with our victory uneasies me. I can't understand how, per the advocate, he watched the film and thought if our players "played tighter" they'd have been an "extreme" defense... Riiiiiiiiight Les :dis:
I thought I noticed a marked improvement in special teams play. Good job by the new coaching staff, IMO.
Long suffering sigh Why post a complaint about the D in this thread. It's not like we don't have 50 other threads harping on the same damn thingNope, you have to post it in a thread talking about one of the positive aspect of our game. I swear, Brett should merge EVERY SINGLE thread complaning about the D so some of you can see exactly how whiney and repetitive that you are being and how many post are being wasted on this subject. Our defensive backfield sucked (i refuse to say the entire D sucked because thats not true). Lets wait and see what 2nd game adjustments are made before crusifying anyone.
