LOL, keep telling yourself that we had an above average offense last season. We had an above average defense - that the offense just barely scored enough to win most games (against competitive talent) isn't something it should hang its laurels on. I would like to throw the first two games out, but they don't hurt my point. 35-31 Az St (scored against a weak defense) 27-30 Tenn (scored in first half on mostly fluke plays, maybe 1 sustained drive all game) 37-07 Miss St (it's Miss St, almost a 1aa team) 34-06 Vanderbilt (it's Vandy - even in a good Vandy year they have crap talent - almost 1aa) 21-17 Florida (5 offensive turnovers, 2 quick, long td passes in first quarter, 1 sustained drive) 20-17 Auburn (td on punt return, long pass sets up td, 1 field goal in regulation and 1 in OT) 56-03 N Texas (they play in the sun belt) 24-00 App St (they are 1aa, though a tough 1aa - offense showed spurts of greatness, but struggled against a 1aa defense) 16-13 Alabama (10 points in regulation, 1 sustained scoring drive, maybe one other sustained drive) 40-07 Ole Miss (O - The Coach; what else to say, Ole Miss sucks, especially last season) 19-17 Arkansas (against mighty Arkansas, our offense struggled) 14-34 Georgia (ugly) 40-03 Miami Florida (Pretty) I think we all thought Flynn would get much more playing time last season - we even thought we might see Perilloux. In truth, Miles was reluctant to take out Russell in our blow-out wins. I don't see our coaching staff making time for 3 qbs. Flynn attempted 15 passes before taking over for Russell against Georgia. This may have mostly been because of our lame offensive production, but the fact remains he was used sparingly throughout the season.
I'd bet the offense looks very similar to that in most seasons if you go back and look really hard at it. Maybe a couple less games where we scored a lot last season. Most of which I think was the result of the oline not being consistent enough to go along with the missed passes and drops that prevented points form going up on the board, just my opinion. The penalties by the oline killed more drives than anything else I it seems.
I agree with lsu-i-like. We are only kidding ourselves if we thought we had a high powered offense. I recall hundreds of posts during last season begging for the offense to open up the playbook. The summer has gone on to long...We need to get the 2006 season under way, so we can disect the plays of this season. :geauxtige :lsup:
Our offense last year number wise was pretty good. It is just that we have the players to potentially have a great offense. Fans are just expecting the most out of these guys, which they should, and when we dont play at that level people claim they are horrible. We did have an above average offense last year LSU-i-like, just not a great one at the level we should be playing at. IMO like 40% of that goes to jimbo. I hate the predictable play calling.
I sat next to a guy in Alabama last year who said our offense was way too predictable and that he could call most of the plays. So we had a little bet and he ended up calling 13 plays correctly, and 7 of them were short yardage and were all successful. He had to supply all the beer after the game and decided he would never want to be a defensive coordinator.
One of the main problems with our offense last year was that our Oline played so badly that we could not spread the field. We were forced to leave a tight end or a fullback in the game to help block. This limited our downfield options and allowed defenses to cut off our passing routes because most of the time we only had two receivers in the game. Even when they did catch the ball there wasn't much running room because two of their DB's didn't have anyone to cover, they just sat back and cut off running lanes. Hopefully our Oline is much better this year and we can take advantage of our speed and size.
I agree with you there. That was an overrated bunch last year, and they didn't get the job done most of time. Whitworth has all the size he needs, but people just used their speed and went right passed him multiple times last year.
Jimbo catches wayyy too much heat for "predictable" play calling. First of all, he plays the offense to win the game - not necessarily to get as many points on the board as possible, which is a mark of a good overall coach. Secondly, he is consistently named one of the top OC's in the country. Thirdly, playcalling cannot account for OLine penalties, no running game, & WRs unable to catch the football.
