Hopefully everyone realizes what is being argued here is that JJ should have taken Hatch's spot, not Lee's. Lee should have been the starter but Jefferson should have been quickly developed to be his change of pace backup. No one could foresee that Lee would have a meltdown like he did. Hell I thought we found our QB after the Auburn game. I actually thought we would beat Florida with him. Of course, a lot of that was based on a perceived notion that our defense was going to be stout from that point on in the season. When it started to all unravel, JJ should have been getting prepared all along in a piecemeal fashion to take over. Not Hatch.
This is best thread stemming from the victory last night. A very intelligent and civil debate on how the coaches handled the QB situation this year. Another reason why TF is BY FAR the best forum on the planet to discuss LSU football (as well as everything else LSU).
Lee wasnt so bad early on. Its when the coaches kept him in when he started losing confidence. Thats when he shorted or overthrew passes. The pick sixes became all too regular. Thats when JJ should have been brought in as a change of pace. Give him some series and see how he does. Fact is from his first action JJ was a better decision maker than Lee. He also made the throws. The coaches dropped the ball here. Im just glad LSU looked good in an impressive win last night. Great to have momentum going into next year.
It's just sad that we have to be thankful that Jarrett Lee got seriously injured. It should have never gotten to that point. Hopefully Les improves his player evaluation skills. It's his weakest area. Hell we won't ever know what Baker could have done in Sheppard's place. Sheppard didn't belong on that field this year. I bet Baker would have made many more impact plays. Well that wouldn't have been difficult, considering Sheppard made all of about 1 or 2 all season long. Talk about deer in the headlights.
Well of course they do. Nobody is claiming otherwise. We are claiming they dropped the ball on the handling of the QB situation, however. Coaches do make mistakes you know.
I hear what you are saying, but there is a big risk in throwing a QB to the wolves before he is comfortable enough to run even a vanilla offense, not the least of which is risking injuring that kid as the result of a mental error or trying to carry the weight of the offense on his shoulders by trying to be heroic. Even in the NFL, where these guys are a few years older (presumably meaning they are wiser and more mature) how many times over the past several years have you seen QBs have their confidence shot because they are forced into starting roles before they have had adequate training reps and time to digest the system? In addition to personal injury and confidence issues, throwing an unprepared QB into the lineup can be detrimental to the team because that kid is likely to make poor throwing decisions that lead to ints, have a higher likelihood to bungle snaps and hand offs, or not get rid of the ball soon enough leading to an increase in sacks. It sucked that we lost 2 more games than most pundits predicted us losing this season, but I'll take those losses any day if it means that a promising and prized recruit thrust into big responsibilities earlier than anticipated is developed appropriately enough to handle becoming a starter before actually becoming a starter.
Its obvious what you're claiming, and its possible they made a mistake. I haven't been with the team all year like the coaches have. We have to ASSUME certain things to jump to conclusions. Do you think maybe, just maybe, theres more to the story than you know about?
Couple more things to add to this debate. 1. We don't know how Lee (or Hatch for that matter) would've faired against GA Tech. With our offensive line playing well and a fairly weak Tech secondary, this game may have been ripe for the picking for all three QBs. Jefferson's mobility is clearly the difference, but I again point out that Lee isn't a statue (just not Jefferson) and Hatch is pretty mobile when healthy. 2. JJ had a surprisingly great 1st half, not a great complete game. Everyone talks about the game JJ had, but really we're all talking about the first half JJ had. The second half was a lot less productive. He had a few good passes, especially the TD that was called back. But he also threw some bad balls, particularly those forced bombs into good coverage. He's lucky those didn't get picked off. And he fumbled twice. Not entirely his fault, but fumbles nonetheless. He was lucky one was incorrectly called a forward pass and Murphy was in the right place for the other. End of the day - I'm sold on JJ. And the thing that sold me the most was not his arm strength or his mobility, but the times he took two steps up into the collapsing pocket, planted his feet, and threw strikes. He did that a few time like he'd been doing it in the SEC for three years. That is what sold me. It's a broken record on my turntable, but the spring is going to be a very exciting time for LSU football. I wish Debose and Loston were set to enroll early.
