unfortunately Im afraid he will be just as prominently featured this year as last with maybe just a handful less rushes but more catches. Les loves him some hester even when he had the 1st overall pick in the draft and 2 other first rounders on offense. Just wait til games are much tighter with flynn and a better defense, then a coach often reverts back to what he feels most comfortable. that is likely hester. the clearing house was a poor excuse for not playing keiland previously. hopefully crowton can convince him of this short controlled passing game he is known for instead.
Hester is used more because he was more trustworthy in all situations. The coaches were quoted as saying that early in the season, Keiland wanted to take every carry to the house, and as a consequence took a lot of no-gains and losses. When they got through to him that he needed to get the 3 or 4 yards on carries that were only going to be good for 3 or 4 yards, he was able to get more touches. Still, however, they didn't trust him in the passing game because he wasn't the receiver or blocker that other running backs were. Because they didn't trust him in the passing game, him being in the game pretty much telegraphed the play to be a run, so they put Hester and Williams in the game more because they didn't telegraph the plays. I guess I'm going to be the resident Hester fan. Dude is a good college player who earned his touches last year. I think he'll start the season splitting time more or less evenly with Keiland, with Richard Murphy getting a lesser share. If Alley is finally back to his old self, that could change everything, but until that happens I'm not expecting anything out of him.
certainly jacob is a quality college player. And Im not talking about keiland being ineffective. Im referring to him not playing early on. Hes a running back who can be thrown in the mix from the word go. the entire running game's ineffectiveness is directly attributed to the poor offensive line play in the first half and not much else. partially could have been redundant playcalling at times though that was not often the case. hester plays a large role in the LSU offense and his best asset is he's 100% durable/dependable. when you have the talent LSU had taken in the draft, his role should have been less. This year we dont have near the weapons on offense so I expect his role to remain the same.
Do you realize that LSU had the second highest rushing yards per game in the SEC last year? Do you realize they had the second highest rushing yards per carry last year as well? It's a myth that LSU's running game was weak. People say this because we didn't have anyone get a lot of yards, but we sure did run the ball effectively almost no matter who was in the game. Our running attack was far far from being ineffective. No one in the SEC except Arkansas (who was on another planet) was better at running the football than we were last year.
of course im aware and we noted this all last year how the stats were very skewed early on in comparison to its actual effectiveness. Much of last year the running game was atrocious in spite of statistics. The times we needed to run the ball and control the game we were unable to about the first half of the season. At one point it finally clicked for the o-line and the running game began to develop.
But there weren't any teams who were able to run the ball and control the game in the SEC last year. Except Arkansas of course.
Agree. In first two games we had 170 against UL :shock: and 231 against Az. but only 42 total yards rushing against AU and 90 against UF in the third and sixth game. Big difference with better competition. :thumb:
yes but 5 yards rushing total at halftime against USL might have been a clue we had more serious issues. or the 40 or whatever against auburn and we barely got over 100 against powerhouse tulane. We started to get it together around the Moo U game who seems to bring out our best in football no matter what the situation or coach or team.
Trying not to be a "homer" and pick LSU running backs really high, I would like to give credit to Kentucky's Raphael Little as the SEC's #3...
