QB D+ The only reason this grade wasn't an F was due to the excellent play of Harris. Jennings is clearly not an SEC caliber QB. He is not decisive, has poor accuracy and has no patience to stay in the pocket. I've essentially just described another recently graduated LSU QB. Harris needs to be under center going forward. He is clearly the much more talented QB. A "perceived" gain in experience with Jennings is simply not the case. His instincts are very poor as well. RB C Hard to give a grade to this unit as they did not stand a chance succeeding with the utterly abysmal O-line play last night. We completed a couple of screen passes finally. So there is that. WR B They played well except for a crucial drop by Dural on a long pass. Dupre and Quinn are going to be a great duo in time. TE F These guys can't even block. At least give us that. It's unbelievable that the recruiting haul of higher caliber TEs has produced this result. OL F The rumblings coming into this week about Jeff Grimes and the poor job he is doing was brought to an entirely new level as LSU faced a stout front 7. The reported "best ever O-line under Les Miles" has turn into the weakest link of the team. The fear is that Grimes will be allowed to flounder for a few years at LSU before finally losing his job. That will be a damn shame. Ethan Pocic does not belong on the field. He was on the ground more than he was standing upright. DL D Again, fears that this D-line may not be able to handle SEC competition has come to fruition. Manhandled in every which way by MSU's O-line, one big run gashing play after another. The lone bright spot was Hunter's scoop and score, saving this unit from getting a grade of F. LB F If you weren't convinced DJ Welter is hurting this team, then you got a reality check last night. Prescott stood to have a great night running with the ball, and he did just that. LSU LBs could not contain him from making one critical first down after another. DB D What appeared to be a top 5 secondary in the country was merely a mirage based on the inferior competition they faced in the first 3 games. Out of position, lack of discipline, poor angles and poor tackling ruled the night for this unit. It was, in a word, disgusting. ST C This unit did not have an effect on the game one way or the other. Coaching F This one is on Les Miles entirely. Besides being poorly prepared, Les showed some overconfidence and cockiness on the MSU goal line stand in trying to force the run 4 straight times. He got a wakeup call on that series, yet failed to heed the clear warning. The gameplan should have been to throw deep and throw often. Instead Les banged his head against a brick wall for all of 3 quarters, trying desperately to play "LSU football", Les Miles style.
I purposely waited until this morning to post in order to leave the emotion out of it. After further review, I don't know if my writeup would have been much different had I posted it last night. It was that bad a night.
LSU scored 3 offensive points in 3+ quarters. The defense was 5 yards away from giving up 41 points. At home. At night. If that isn't profound, I don't know what is.
I also noticed the arrogance last night. The fans deserve better. Teams are not perfect, coaches aren't perfect, players aren't perfect...but when people deny that there's a pattern here...idk wtf else to tell them except pull your head out your asses.
If you have the game on DVR, go back and watch the failed 3rd down attempt on that goal line stand. Miles has a bit of a snicker on his face as if to be flabbergasted that his vaunted jumbo set run game was stopped. He then proceeds to go for it on 4th down and call yet another running play. A designed QB sneak into the endzone with a QB who has no decisiveness about him and absolutely no instincts. That's a pretty horrid combination. I am assuming the coaches see this lack of ability in Jennings during practice. And I am assuming they choose to ignore it.
What good does extra linemen serve when you run up the middle? Never understood this. Spread them out! Math is hard.
Maybe a D for the tight ends. Dickson made a couple of nice catches including a long one that was called back. And I did see some good downfield blocking. Not enough, but not failing. Ensminger has been here long enough to be held responsible for recruiting and training up the tight ends. Without improvement this season, he could be the next position coach for early retirement.
WR grade is more like a C; shoulda caught a few passes they didn't, possibly ran the wrong or poor patterns more than once.
Gotta agree with Shane a bit, this isn't the first game where these things happened. People sweep things under the rug when LSU wins, regardless of how we look. But gotta disagree with yall a bit too; Les has a pretty good record here. Gotta see more ineptitude before our bitching will amount to a hill of beans/be relevant. I kinda forgot our D and OL underperformed last year, so there's that for the negatigers.
I'm not ready to crucify Anthony Jennings. He was obviously hurt. My complaint on this game is middle linebacker, offensive line, and offensive coaching. Harris looked great because he was turned loose. You guys really think you will see this Brandon Harris in other games? Les is a stubborn man and he will continue to try to run the football over and over and over and over again until we get so far behind he has no choice but to let the qb sling it.
