It's not so bad on this board, but I'm curious to hear fro the "Jimbo's too conservative" crowd members here. Just take a look at the official play by play: http://www.lsusports.net/downloads1/11364.htm?ATCLID=609432&SPID=2164&DB_OEM_ID=5200&SPSID=27815#GAME.PLY Look at Jimbo's 1st-down playcalling - For the whole game, 15 passes, 10 runs. This includes drives begun on the LSU 23, and the LSU 8. The 15 pass attempts on first down also make up 43% of JMR's 35 pass attempts on the day. I'll pre-address the 2 most obvious criticisms. In the first 2 quarters, during which the score was tied the entire time, it was 3 runs/2 passes in the 1st quarter, 2 runs/5 passes in the 2nd. So Jimbo didn't just start throwing on 1st down once it got to crunch time, and/or once it became clear our run game was subpar. Now take out the 4th quarter to filter out the last drive - now you've got 9 passes, 8 runs. And that includes the two drives started deep in LSU territory. The percentage comes out to 25%. So is Jimbo gutless because he plays it too close to the vest, despite calling more 1st down passes than runs in a defensive slugfest, even on our own 8 yard line? And does it consistently throughout the whole game? I'll concede the 2 run plays to start the 2nd-to-last drive, but do 2 plays outweigh an entire gameplan built around 1st-down throws? Outside of that, it seems to me that there's not much, if anything, for the "Jimbo's scared" crowd to hang their hats on.
Some people will not be happy unless every play is a long pass. Such people will never be football coaches, fortunately. Any offensive coordinator that is not conservative against a defense like we played yesterday is going to get burned. We out-gained Auburn big time, we were in it the whole game, and had a chance to win on the final drive. Fisher did his job well. As usual.
As we saw on the last drive, its not play calling that wins games its executing those plays that does. If you execute poorly, a majority of the time you will loose. Auburn executed better when it mattered, and, as much as it pains me to say this, hats off to them. I was very, very impressed with the defense, this defense looks like it has the chance to be one of the best defenses ever.
OK, I'll bite. For me, it's not all about the number of runs vs passes. It has more to do with formations and the number of WRs in the game. We haven't been able to line up and blow people of the ball since the '04 season ... the year we couldn't complete a forward pass. Go back to the '01 season when we didn't have a great running game nor a great defense. We did have a pretty good QB and some really good WRs. What did we do? We went with 3 and 4 WR sets to spread the field. We made defenses defend the entire field. And yes, that did open some running lanes. Fast forward to present. We aren't capable of lining up and blowing people off the ball. This new bunch formation only added to our running problem by forcing more defenders in the box. Contrary to what some think, we have a really good QB and good WRs. Play to your strength by spreading the field. You don't abandon the run, you just find other ways to run the ball when you can't overpower defenses. I love having a great defense, but it does make us more conservative on offense. We have a "don't lose the game" mentality on offense. Play close to the vest and let our defense do its job. That will win you many games, but it will cost you a game or 2 against top notch defenses. Jimbo has shown he is a capable OC. Play to your strength on offense. Run blocking and a lack of an explosive RB are our weaknesses right now. We can be stubborn and continue to run the ball or we can accept what is and tweak the offense.
I agree Red. Sometimes there are times/situations where I might expect them to run a certain play--and if they don't, and perhaps run a play differently than I was expecting, and fail, then it's easy for people to claim that they know more than a coach. Funny how every media pundit, analyst and most head coaches across the country, refer to Jimbo as one of college football's brightest coordinators, yet T-Bob Coonass, with more bourbon in his system than a liquor distributing company, consistantly wants to claim that Jimbo is a terrible and vanilla offensive coordinator..... :shock: :dis: I just don't get that.
Toss sweeps to Hester and Broussard don't get it down against a fast defense like Auburn. On their first possession of the second half (the only drive where they ran the ball effectively), LSU had a 2nd and 5 just past midfield. They ran a sweep to speed demon Hester and lost 2 or 3 yards. 3rd and 8. Incomplete pass. Drive and chance to kill Auburn's momentum over. Auburn drives and scores their lone TD. I also noticed early in the game that JR had success throwing quick passes like slants and screens. After a few drives, completions were hard to find, but most of the passing plays were deep drops with JR holding the ball for 4-5 seconds. I don't know if it's due to JR's decision-making, our WR's inability to break off press coverage or the way the plays are drawn up, but it seems our passing plays take WAY too long to develop. It's almost like every pass play turns into a scramble drill. And with our current stable of slow RB's, the running plays seems to take WAY too long to develop. Just my opinion.
The primary issue I have with Fisher; no desire to go for the kill when the opportunity presents itself. I'm all for being conservative and not giving the game away on your end of the field, however, against teams like Auburn, every so often situations present themselves where you must try to capitalize on what your defense gives you. I can accept the inability to capitalize, but the unwillingness to try to take advantage is another story all together. Courtesy of LSUSports.net
