Not to take anything away from the NC victory or the great season as a whole, but did anyone else notice that the Tigers have trouble running the last two minutes or so off the clock to sinch a victory? They couldn't do it in the Fla. game and couldn't do it vs. OU. It seems like their regular, move the chains offense disappears and some ultra-conservative run three into the middle of the line and out offense takes over... Luckily, in both games, the opposition was not able to capitalize on the extra possession because our D came through each time. Your serious, non smart-a$$ comments welcome.
A lot of teams have trouble running out the clock especially if their offense is not run left, run right, run up the middle. LSU uses a lot of short passes in its offens and you hate to throw when you're trying to burn clock. Also LSU played some of the best defenses in the nation this year which makes it even harder when they know what you are doing to run clock. I think LSU should go ahead and throw some of those safe high pecentage short passes to keep the defense honest and move the chains at the end of the game.
I think the fact that LSU was little more that 2 minuntes away from a National Championship that you dreamed about your whole life and the fact that Mauck had thrown 2 int. It looked like the OU defense was sitting on the run and it also Looked like Matt started thinking " just dont let this get away ". looked like a team just tring to get to the end. Plus those refs sure did get the ball set real fast after a couple of those kneel downs.
The Matt Mauck interception on the first play of the fourth quarter changed the whole complexion of the game. First of all, it enabled OU to score and so tightened the margin to only 7 points giving OU new life late in the game, and second it allowed OU to gamble and stack the line in order to prevent the run, gambling that LSU would go conservative on the pass after that interception, which they did. Had Mauck on that play threw the ball to Devery Henderson, who was wide open on a post pattern instead of the bad throw to Duane Bowe, LSU would have scored a touchdown on that play instead and blew the game wide open. So all it took was just one bad play that went the wrong way for LSU to change what was an otherwise easy game into a nail biter. But hey, what's football without a little of drama. We can all look at the bright side though, besides winning the game and the NC, LSU beat a very good OU team, despite not bringing and playing their A game.
I honestly believe that all the LSU coaches came away from this game with knowledge of how to handle like situations next year. Yes, LSU should have/could have beaten OU by 2-3 touchdowns but I will take this victory and our National Championship and thank our defense for it. I believe Coach Saban will take about 1 day off and start tweaking and molding schemes for next year.
If you remember, we tried one of those "safe" plays with a simple pass to the TE on a misdirection play, and it was executed quite well, except Mauck decided to aim the ball for the first time all day. Even the announcers commented on him "aiming" the ball. He obviously tightened up.
