I definitely understand the entire attitude of not breaking in a QB before he's ready. But give him a quarter of play vs App State and North Texas State, versus giving Hatch as much PT as he got. That's all I am saying. Get his feet wet under easy conditions. Build up his confidence slowly. By the time we were almost forced to get him into a game was vs Bama because Lee got nicked up, JJ looks frightened out of his mind on the sidelines. That should not have been the case.
Well, obviously the coaches saw the same thing... I don't think it was unreasonable for the coaches to think that Lee would improve as the season went on - obviously, they were wrong, but that doesn't mean it was a bad assumption. And there was no way we could've known our other 2 QBs would go down with injuries. I'm not disagreeing with you - just stating what looked to be the coaches' logic.
With the way the defense played this year, none of it matters. I'm just glad we have some closure and some confidence to end the season instead of more question marks. I'll say this...if JJ doesn't improve AT ALL in the spring and Chavis turns our defense back into what it SHOULD be, we're in the SEC Championship game next year. If JJ gets better...I feel sorry for the rest of the SEC.
Well my contention was never with Lee. No one could project Lee would be an interception machine. Lee looked great vs Auburn and we all thought we had our QB. My problem is investing in Hatch, who is not an SEC QB. Not even close. JJ should have been afforded the opportunity to beat out Hatch for the change of pace QB and seen PT early in those first 2 games.
Also, while Jefferson showed tremendous improvement over the 3 week bowl preparation, I think it is important to note that Lee also apparently showed great improvement as well. I was expecting our QB situation to be better next year, but not good - only decent. I'm still not expecting greatness, but I feel much better about it.
Our coaches knew that Hatch wasn't an SEC QB, but his grasp of the playbook was far better than either Lee or Jefferson. I don't think Hatch playing was about investing in his improvement - it was about trying to bring the other guys along slowly as opposed to throwing them in the fire. And yes, Jefferson was 3rd string & didn't get many reps with 1's in practice, but its not like the coaches weren't observing him to see where he was.
I would say that's reasonable of the coaching staff to operate in that manner. Hindsight is 20/20. I'll leave it at that.
Also, I'd like to mention that CLM doesn't always play seniority over talent. See one Patrick Peterson for a quick example. Sophomore Richard Dickson getting most of the snaps over an established senior in Zinger last year is another good example. Now that I'm thinking about it, Toliver got a lot of snaps over Byrd and the Mitchell bros. this year. What I'm saying is...I think the decision to play Lee over JJ was much deeper than CLM's "stubbornness" toward playing upperclassmen. I'm not saying he was right, but we clearly don't know enough about it to pass judgement or to worry about a percieved disturbing trend.
Am I the only one who remembered Miles himself saying, in multiple venues, that Jefferson wasn't ready yet? Either Izzy and others (who have next to ZERO actual insight into LSU practices and QB progression) are better judges of college QB potential than Crowton and Miles, or we should trust that the coaches just might know something we don't and accept that Jefferson surprised everyone. FWIW - the playbook is more than 25 or 30 calls. Crowton's offense is complex beyond a first-year freshman's ability to be intuitive and flexible executing it. Jefferson had zero chance of being that guy against Auburn. He wasn't that guy against Arkansas, either. THAT is the point. It's laughable that some of you guys actually believe you are smarter at developing a depth chart than Les Miles.
