Times Picayune article, Peter Finney

I almost fell on the floor when i read this artical. Damn Greenie winnie! The head lines on the front page of the sports section reads,

Tulane leaves Tigers with questions to answer
Sunday, September 30, 2007Peter Finney
Here's the question I came away with: Did little ol' Tulane cost LSU a shot at a national championship?

The LSU football team that went into Saturday's game favored to win by 41 1/2 points was right on schedule, right where Les Miles wanted his Tigers to be, at a time the coach knew they'd be launching an October charge against the defending national champion Florida Gators.

And look how it was playing out.

The Tigers followed an opening ho-hum 45-0 pasting of Mississippi State with a defense that looked like it might give up a handful of first downs per game.

Then the offense came to life with a crisp 48-7 blitz of Virginia Tech, a top-10 team favored to win the Atlantic Coast Conference.

After continuing to sharpen execution here and there, against out-manned Middle Tennessee State, the Tigers responded quickly to an early 7-0 deficit against 12th-ranked South Carolina, doing it with a series of explosions featuring speed and sharp blocking up front, creating just the right amount of daylight for a stable of thoroughbred ball carriers.

Yes, it appeared Les Miles was moving into October with a team that deserved its No. 2 ranking, one armed with a big-play defense and an offense equipped with enough of a big-play threat to keep an elite foe on guard.

And then came little ol' Tulane.

Sure you can state the obvious, that the Tigers were looking beyond Sept. 29 to Oct. 6.

Sure you can say, as much as a coach preaches "take 'em one at a time," it's next to impossible to get a bunch of athletes who keep hearing they're as good as anyone on the planet, thinking seriously about an opponent that easily could have fallen to Southeastern Louisiana the week before.

In terms of talent, it's accurate to say there may never have been a wider gap between LSU and Tulane.

All right, but didn't the Tigers win 34-9? Didn't they settle down to win the second half 24-0?

Sure, but let's look at a few things.

In the first half, the Tigers rushed for minus-11 yards.

With nine minutes remaining, Tulane sacked Matt Flynn for the sixth time.

It wasn't until there were 12 minutes left that Charles Scott broke loose for a 35-yard scoring gallop, the kind LSU fans felt would be taking place early and often.

Here's the bottom line: For a full three quarters, LSU's offensive line was outplayed by the Tulane defense.

And even though LSU's defense remained tough, Bob Toledo's offense came up with enough imagination behind quarterback Anthony Scelfo to keep the football for more than 18 minutes during a 10-9 first half. Any way you slice it, that was a major accomplishment.

"Give Tulane credit," said Miles. "They played hard and well."

Right on.

Which raises the question: As badly as LSU's offensive line played, as troubling as was the performance delivered by Flynn, a tentative quarterback who missed some wide-open receivers, who is not near 100 percent physically, what can you expect of the LSU offense next week against Florida, with a defense blessed with a host of blue-chippers?

In one way, mentally, Miles' offense has moved back to square one, sort of where it was before the season. That's when they were posing questions, mainly on the quarterback position.

Now they're posing questions on whether the offensive line, which drew 11 of LSU's 15 penalties, can get its act together, also whether the Tigers are good enough to beat Florida without a go-to receiver such as Early Doucet, who was absent Saturday.

All in all, the Tigers' effort on offense was not the kind Miles expected, or appreciated, against an outmanned foe.

Tulane managed to stay in the game well into the third quarter when Matt Forte, with the Green Wave trailing 13-9, gave his team life near midfield with a 21-yard run, only to fumble it away on the next play. Five snaps later, the score was 20-9 and the Tigers were off to their fifth "W" of the season.

At the moment, Miles is off to the tape room, looking for answers he felt his offensive line had answered against Virginia Tech, the night his blockers led the way for one long drive after another against what was pegged as one of the top defensive fronts in the country.

Miles needs answers. And he needs them in a hurry.

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

finney has covered (andmay still cover) LSU for the TP. i don't see anyhting in his article but the truth. there are some questions after this perfromance. hopefully things that will be addressed and that we will improve upon.

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

LSU had the largest margin of victory of all the top 10 teams. Five teams got upset. The #1 team, USC, barely won by 3 points to unranked Washington.

Tulane didn't expose anything about our team, and any questions raised were less so than the other top teams. We went out there & did what we had to do to get the win. That's more than a lot of teams can say this morning.

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

I see the AP doesn't agree with him. It takes our worst performance of the season to make some headway against SC. Let Finney tune in Saturday night and be happy (for Tulane) that that Tiger Team stayed in bed yesterday.

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

It was against who!!!! TULANE??? Maybe they were just in a giving mood - New Orleans - Hurricanes , all that stuff...

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

No reason to go there ^. (Sorry, I am just worn on the Katrina talk every time there is a game played in NOLA.)

Finney has been a longtime columnist for the TP and was around when the series between the two schools was much better. I think Finney probably prefers to write something that includes controversy that is brought on at the behest of this particular football series. Makes for better reading in the local rag. As an aside, it's hard to see any blatant errors coming from him in his piece, other than the fact that there seems to have been no down-side to beating Tulane yesterday by a 25 point margin given what else happened around CFB. But I am sure the column was written and submitted long before football had ended yesterday. The next column will probably be about the improperly bestowed #1 AP ranking.

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

If LSU wins out they're a lock for the BCS Championship game. The computer polls favor LSU this year more so than any of the other legitimate teams angling for the Nat'l Championship game.

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

So, what you are saying, is you are completely comfortable with the QB play was (against TULANE) and ready to roll on Saturday. Just asking.

 

Re: Times Picayune artical, Peter Finney

I'm more comfortable with the QB play than I am with the OLine & WR play. It looked like both our O & D Lines slept walked through this game. I expect them to be much sharper against Florida. Doucet should be back also.