THE GOOD Jamie Keehn had a hell of a night punting the football, averaging 51 yards on 8 punts with a 62-yard boomer. Harris has an accurate arm. If he can just learn the playbook, he can take the starting quarterback job soon. Dural is still playing like an All-American. Dupre finally had a big game. The tight ends got a few ball thrown to them. Dickson had a nice long one called back for a flag. Fournette still looks sharp returning kickoffs. Matter of time before he breaks a big one. The team did not quit and staged a 4th-quarter comeback that barely fell short. They had a shot. Heads-up fumble recovery and TD return by Hunter. No major injuries that I saw. We don't have to play Prescott anymore. THE BAD Jennings just never looked comfortable out there. His passing was inaccurate and his decisions to run the football were almost all wrong. 11 rushes for 6 yards. We are getting a bit predictable in the I formation. The fullback dive did not fool State once. Quinn got open a lot last night but if he wasn't the primary receiver, Jennings never looked at him. The passes were not perfect, but we still had too many drops from the wide receivers. LSU cannot stop the run without putting defensive backs into the box. None of the running backs have separated themselves from the other three. We really need a feature back, the committee ain't working well this year. There are no Bo Jacksons here. The switch to Harris was too late. But then again, Harris' success came against the State 2nd string defense. Robinson gashed the defense for 197 yards . . . 12 yards a carry. The defense is not disguising coverages or blitzes very well. Prescott knew what they were coming with and said so after the game. THE UGLY Camerons play calling. Lining up and running out of the I was not working. We stayed with it for way too long. The offensive line at this point cannot be called cohesive or particularly strong. Again, no holes for the running backs. On the last drive, State had 3 men in the box and managed to hurry the quarterback. The defensive line failed badly and got pushed around on the line of scrimmage. All night.
The Good- The heart and resolves this team plays with is amazing. Despite any odds, they fight all 60 minutes. What a great group of kids. Harris and Dupre show some serious potential. The Bad- Dural had a huge drop on an important drive. The Ugly- The lack of focus to start the game killed LSU. The two biggest games of the season and the team starts out with no focus and a pathetic gameplan. This time we were not able to come back after allowing ourselves to fall in a deep hole. The tackling and angles in this game was atrocious. The defensive coaches must step up and coach. The OL was manhandled yet again. The play calling was far too conservative. I'm sick of people defending Miles here. We saw this with Crowton, Stud, and now Cam. Where it is easy to look at the formation and know what is coming next. I'm sorry but there is one common denominator- Miles!!!! Even when Flacco was developing Cam still went down the field and mixed things up some despite being more run oriented.
I think the near comeback, allows us to feel better about last night than we or more importantly the team deserves.
Pocic started on the O-line at guard over Hoko Fanaika, but it didn't seem to help and Fanaika was back in later in the game. Porter still is not looking good at center and just whiffed on one of the bad sacks. They need to keep making some changes until they find an answer. I want to see Pocic back at center and maybe Washington at guard. But really, nobody on the line is performing well including Collins.
The only good thing about this game is the garbage time yardage/points that made it look much closer in the stats than it was. This was the most thoroughly dominated I've seen the Tigers look in a long time. Ugly is some of the laziness, loafing, quit, and just flat out getting embarrassed that a number of our players participated in. But this loss is 100% on out coaching staff. Collins and Alexander got beaten to the point that it appeared they had been instructed to stopped trying to pass protect or run block. Kwon Alexander is apparently the only player on the roster who was allowed to play the position of linebacker. Of the 11 players on defense only 1 of them was allowed to tackle anyone on any given play. The front 7 were told to move aside at the snap to lure the run game right up the middle, then surprise them by rushing back to tackle them from behind after they sped past. The backs and receivers had gotten instruction to stop advancing the ball at first contact by any defender, do not try to run through tackles or fight for extra yards. So as not to get hurt maybe? Jennings was told not to get rid of the ball quickly no matter the pass rush. He was required to go through the entire progression twice before throwing. Poor players never had a chance.
Weirder than that is calling the first timeout to save time and then calling a running play which (surprise) didn't gain squat, then letting the clock run down!
Collins will not likely be playing left tackle in the NFL. He was a dominating guard once, but has been a disappointing left tackle.
