I think the main problems with our team, as of late, are hitting and pitching. I don't think that that necessarily rests on the head coach's shoulders as much as it does the assistants and coaching methods being used... Maybe it does, but in any case, Skip needs to do whatever he did with Brady to Smoke... I don't care if that's getting some Div-1 HEAD coaches in as assistants or what... but we all know that something needs to change.
i don't mean to shoot you down,b/c you know i love your posts but how can you say we should hire turtle thomas, then say our assistants suck?
For all of those who don't think that Rick Jones would make a good head coach for LSU, you should have seen the 5:00 news on WWL-TV here in New Orleans last night. They interviewed players from both LSU and Tulane, and you could just tell the difference in recruiting between Smoke and Jones. While Tulane's players appeared to be intelligent, confident young men, LSU's players looked like they should be picking a banjo in Deliverance.
I think you're right, but I think that even if it's not Smoke's fault, it's his responsibility. I think that the "something" that needs to be changed is the attitude of the team. All the little things that LSU has done so well in the past, are just simply not there anymore: solid fielding, smart baserunning, making a clutch play, etc. These things are more mental exercises than anything having to do with X's and O's coaching. These guys lack a disciplined attitude. Mentally, they suck. These are the things a good baseball coach can correct (or never let happen in the first place). Smoke has shown zero ability to shape the attitude of his teams during his time at LSU. That's why you see Seniors make asinine mistakes, and a serious lack of player development. I can't blame Smoke for everything, but it's time for a change.
LSU does those things better now and never did that in the past except for clutch plays. We'd sloth along in fielding yet now are 2nd best fielding team in the league. Problem with that is for small ball to work you need good pitching. well guess which team has the worst era in the league? batting average is overrated but guess which team has the worst batting average in the league. same answer for both which isnt a good formula. I think you're correct on the discipline/attitude thats now prevalent. there's no urgency within some people and thats often a good trait when under stress. However, this team is no longer just under stress, its under duress, pain and mediocrity thats not changing and the head coach is responsible. I see no way they cannot replace smoke with the new stadium on the horizon. also, its gonna be hard to talk a top drafted kid into turning it down for a lame duck coach. smoke suffers a lot of what brady suffers from. He doesnt care what the public thinks and thats great as long as you're winning. As Ive said before though, once you lose consistently its time to pay the piper and often times its costly. If smoke would just give the fans some feeling that he is cognizant the ship he is captain-ing has been sinking and he's got the crew to change it or just a sense of urgency something is completely wrong then some would buy in. the biggest problem is, "that's just baseball" reply just doesn't work anymore.
