Solid write up. I wouldn't necessarily assume Beckham will permanently replace Shep, I think the plan is for Shepard to come back soon. It'd be great to be able to utilize them both in the near future. As for the passing game -- a lot of catchable balls were dropped, but they were coming a half second late. The accuracy wasn't a concern for Lee; he was more or less on the money with his throws and making the correct decision but the ball was arriving at the same time as the defenders on many of those incomplete passes. Just needs to speed up the process a bit and hit those windows as soon as they open.
Good points, IMO you could see how young those guys were. I mean, their first game as a Tiger was in Prime time. Crazy when you think about it.
You bring up a great point about the timing issue. Again, I want to watch the game over to really see all aspects of the passing game and why it was so ineffective for most of the night. I think you're on to something with the timing. DBs were able to recover in time because of being just a tad late with pulling the trigger.
i dunno that les is doing so well, it seems to me the D is just so destructive that any coach or any offense could win with them. opposing backs just get blown up immediately and disheartened. lsu basically does two things: destroy every opposing offensive player on the field, and run the ball behind a punishing O-line. coaches and quarterbacks and recievers dont do much of anything except enjoy winning.
I notice a number of our D players lifting off to lay the wood... The Penalties are gonna start flying... But I love it, instills the fear.
That's a valid assessment. One I'm sure will only get better the more 1st-team reps Lee gets in practice and he gains confidence. Lot of inexperienced WR's making their first college starts with a QB that hasn't really started a whole lot the past 3 years, so, yeah, it's fair to say that timing might not be where it needs to be. But not many teams will have it all down perfectly week 1--especially those that played games vs actual opponents
To be fair it isn't all on Lee. Timing is on the WR too. I remember on one occasion Lee threw a play-action skinny post to Beckham and the pass was broken up. At first it looked like Lee was late with the delivery but when they showed the replay of Beckham's route it definitely looked like he rounded off his cut and drifted a bit. If he runs a sharper post and comes further underneath the DB, he might have been able to catch it and run a bit. I don't list that example to bash Beckham but rather to point out that the youth of the WRs could also have caused the timing issues. On that one occasion Lee delivered the ball on time but it appeared late because the WR let the ball travel a bit too much. A very correctable issue that will resolve itself with time. Let these young wideouts get comfortable out there and we could see a truly multifaceted offense this season.
It was the first game of the year. Teams typically clean up and tighten up their performance the most between game 1 and 2. With Northwestern coming in next week it will be a good chance to work on all these timing/route running issues. Could be a pretty special year.
