Sorry if this has been posted, but you get a little "spread" in the attached article... http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=184921 LSU: A change of philosophy Les Miles has had a ready-made championship team at LSU for two years now. So what does he do? He hires spread whiz Gary Crowton to coordinate his offense, and the loaded Tigers -- who won 22 games and no championships the past two seasons -- are learning a playbook Miles admits won't be fully digested until beyond fall camp. New starting quarterback Matt Flynn is more athletic than JaMarcus Russell; he's similar to a guy named Matt Mauck, who merely led LSU to the national title in 2003. And if you have a relatively inexperienced quarterback (Flynn has one career start) and inexperienced receivers, the misdirection of the spread option keeps pressure off the passing game by steering clear of predictable passing sets and formations. Flynn doesn't have Russell's arm strength, and Flynn can't get the offense out of jams with a flick of the wrist. Misdirection has to be a part of the offense, and Flynn's ability to get outside the tackles and run (hey, it wasn't pretty with Mauck, either, but it was effective) adds another dimension. Especially considering the offense still has the hammer of speedy, bruising tailback Keiland Williams.
Its definitely a change in direction for us. I like Crowton because of the experience he brings but the jury will be out for a while. The one knock on Crowton was that his offenses get "figured out" by opposing D-Coordinators. His first year numbers in his previous jobs have been really, really good but after that they drop off. At BYU his first year was incredible and nobody could stop them. His next 3 years almost everyone stopped it. You cant say the spread wont work in the SEC because look what CUM has done. It will be interesting to see how much Coach Miles has given to Crowton. Is he letting him run Crowton's full offense or he is asking him to change it up to suite LSU's talent? Regardless, I suspect we will have a very potent offense next year anyway.
the spread option is my favorite offense but it is driven by personnel and all players need a to know what their doing plus timing's important. LSU has the tyoe of QB in Flynn and RP to make it work, it'll just take some time to learn i.e. Fla. 2005.
