http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2438840&campaign=rss&source=NCFHeadlines This was in the LSU News Section, But I thought it should be moved here for discussion.
If Russell gets the starting job back and struggles I wonder if CLM will yank his @$$ or go down w/the ship like in the Tennessee game last year.
First off it is not a matter of Russell getting the starting job. He is the starter unless he loses it. Second, of course CLM will pull him if things get horrible, but not for any thing like the UT game. He completed 14-28 passes, ran for a TD and threw a pick. But we also had 9 dropped passes in that game. That is not his fault. The pick he threw was a bad decision, but those are gonna happen. I swear I am to the point where I think it is all about race when it comes to quarterback with some people. Russell is a good quarterback who is still learning and has tools that most only dream of. Yet we will be seeing posts like this until he is gone........to the NFL.
Or until he starts playing up to his potential. Russell is a quality QB that should be much better, let's hope he kicks it up a notch this season but if not........
That's the whole thing. What potential does he need to "live up to?" How many Qb's in college where better than him last year? How many had higher completion ratio's? How many had higher passer ratings? Only one QB in the SEC was statistically better last year. I am not saying he is perfect. He has tons of room for improvement, but that is the best thing about him. He is already better than most college QB's and is still gettting better and learning. But OVD and others can't wait for Miles to "yank his ass".
Read your own answer to your question below I'm definitely not saying he isn't a good QB right now, but he will be a 4th year Jr next season and his physical ability is far past his level of play. He has the physical ability to dominate a game but hasn't played near that potential yet. I wouldn't get too fired up about anything OVD has to say,JMO. Fans get frustrated because most think he is able to play better than he has so far, me included. That's not to say he wasn't a capable QB last season just that some expect better from someone with his God given physical talent. We also have quality backups that should be pushing him for PT and if he doesn't improve he can be passed by either one, just ask Josh Booty.
We had a great record last season and Russell had an awesome completion percentage. It wasn't like Fisher was restrained by Russell and had to resort to coaching Russell to only attempt high percentage passes. Who cares if we played down to the competition and mostly relied on our defense to get wins? That's what a good team does, if they suck in one aspect of the game, the other side picks up the slack. Oh, wait, the stats said we had a good offense last season. I must have been watching rerun tapes of my flag football days. Damn I sucked. Racists like me would sure love to see Russell lead a dangerous offense. I guess he does deserve credit for realizing that the defense had his back when the offense couldn't move the ball. It is hilarious, all you folks telling us what a good offense we had last season and how good Russell looked. I watched the games, why are you trying to tell me I didn't see what I saw. Is there some conspiracy going on in tiger land?
JR should improve upon his last season if he wins the QB job, nothing is a given at this point hopefully. He was a good QB last year, but fans demand the QB to be great now a days I guess. And the backups have historically been the favorite of the fans that like to gripe, so we'll hear griping no matter which QB wins the job unless he is great. If there is one position on the football field where a guy doesn't need any kind of physical ability to dominate a game, it's at QB, especially at the college level. Having a strong arm is only about 1/20th of being a good QB and can lead to more harm in many instances that good. The list is long of strong armed QB's who've failed miserably at QB over the years and most of the better QB's in history have had good arms at best with many having average at most. I hear all this crap about JR not living up to his potential and it just makes me cringe everytime. Is a great arm a bonus, yes. But as I said earlier I think that many times it becomes a detriment to the QB as they rely on their arm strength too much early in their football careers and develope more slowly. Lord knows JR has a lot of room for improvement, but anyone that says he was awful or that he didn't have a handle on the offense is spewing retoric in order to push their own agenda I think.
There's one guy who reds me whenever I say something bad about Russell, but I'm gonna say it anyway. There were times last season where I was like, "What a throw!" And there where several times where I was like, "That was terrible." He runs like his feet are made of lead, and he telegraphs EVERY single throw. There were several times where he should have been picked off, but got lucky because it was a really hard thrown ball or just a simple DB drop. BUT he was efficient. However, is efficient enough? Yeah, he can throw off his back foot a million yards, but there's something missing. I honestly believe that if Rohan Davey was behind center in this offense, he would have been way more productive. So, it's not a race thing... for me. Russell doesn't appear to have very good pocket awareness or something, and it's painful to watch him scramble. I don't know. I was a big fan at first, but now I'm just waiting to be awed. When will we get our Brady Quinn or Matt Leinart? Do we want one? Another thing... who the heck is Trindon Holliday? He seems way too small, but if he is as illusive as they say, he may be a pretty interesting prospect.
LOL, I'm guessing you will know who he is about 3 seconds after the ball is kicked off on opening night. How sweet would it be to see a freshman take one back on the first touch of his career? Even if it is against some cupcake team.
