But the spring game is a meaningless scrimmage, remember? Where did I say any of our special teams personnel were irreplaceable? I'm simply pointing out a general reality about football, that a unit will not be as consistently successful with freshmen and other young players at the helm, as it was with seniors. If our freshmen punters can consistently get those pinned inside the 5-10, get good hangtime, and hit FGs with Jasper's accuracy, then Les has got a kicking pipeline for the ages. Coverage is a much bigger concern IMO. At times it was very lax last year. I can't say I'm sad to see punt ugly go away in favor of a more traditional scheme.
Well, I respectfully disagree. We do lose some defense, but we also return a ton (possibly literally) of experience on the O-Line, have studly RBs, and have an incredible secondary that is very likely to be even better than last year's overall. And you must keep in mind that everyone else loses players, too. Auburn loses Cam and Fairley; Bama loses Julio, Ingram and McElroy, Ole Miss loses Masouli, etc., etc. My point was that there is no reasonable justification for expecting any worse QB play this year than we had last year. Assuming the worst, it would be no better. And with the level of QB play we had last year we were still a hair's breadth away from winning the SEC. So there is no reason to suspect that equally bad QB play will put us any further away from that goal this year. And again, that's assuming the highly unlikely event of zero improvement at the QB position. ldskule::geaux:ldskule:
Then how did we come one play short of winning the west and facing South Carolina for the SEC Title last year? Is that one play really so much of a margin as to make the difference between "dangerous and unpredictable" and "dominant"? Auburn won't be anywhere near as good without Cam and Fairley (and no, we don't lose anyone as significant to our team as Cam was to Auburn; I'm not sure all our personnel losses combined are as significant to our team as Cam was to Auburn). Bama loses McElroy, Julio and Ingram among others. Ole Miss loses Masouli. Miss. State loses there entire starting LB corps plus 2 off their OL. Arkansas loses Mallet and 3 O-Linemen. And the East is not likely to be quite up to the West again, so winning the West should give us a good chance at the SEC Title. Imo, I just don't see us being out of the running even in the unlikely event of zero improvement at the QB position. A National Championship would be highly unlikely, but an SEC Championship would not be out the question. ldskule::geaux:ldskule:
LSU could produce 5 All-American O-linemen and 3 All-American RBs next season, and none of that matters against a 7-8 man box with Jefferson unable to throw downfield. Not on every down, but enough to keep defenses off balance. That must happen to have something resembling an effective offense in this league. That is not up for debate. Here's the problem with your "we were a hair's width away from the SECCG" argument. I can just as easily say that LSU was a hair's width away from being 8-4 instead of 10-2 in the regular season. When you start talking about games we "should have won", you also have to look at games we "should have lost" to be objective. So in trying to evaluate the state of the team, I have to face reality, which is that LSU had a bottom-dwelling passing game last year. Jefferson doesn't have to be a Heisman candidate, he just has to be smart enough with the ball to make timely plays and minimize mistakes. You might be right and he may be able to do that. But I've seen enough of his mental agility and football acumen (or lack thereof) to be suspicious of his level of improvement.
You can't expect to do much better than 10-2 with a lack of consistent offensive production/poor qb play. Defense and special teams can only carry you so far. Even if we were "one play" away from the SEC championship game, we were fortunate to be there. We were also one play away from losing both the UNC and Tennessee games. Maybe Jordan Jefferson has grown as a QB. His growth into a consistent, productive QB would lead us to a national title. We will find out eventually.
Then why were we able to beat 6 of the 8 SEC teams we faced? And why were we within one score of the other two? Yes, but I'm not saying we have no chance of going 8-4 next year. The reality is that with the level of QB play we got last year, our team was still good enough to potentially go 11-1 or 12-0, and also bad enough to potentially go 8-4. If our QB play remains the same, that reality will likely continue through next season, meaning an SEC Championship is not out of the question, nor is an 8-4/7-5 season (since our OOC is considerably tougher this year). Then you must also face the reality that a bottom-dwelling passing game was not enough to keep us far at all from winning the SEC. As I was saying above, with the talent and experience around the rest of this team, the margin between 7-5 and SEC Champions is within the range of inconsistent QB play like we had last year. ldskule::geaux:ldskule:
I'm really not understanding your point here. You admit that inconsistent QB play results in a very large range of uncertainty, so we should all be satisfied if Jefferson makes minimal progress? With the margin of error that slim, I want to see as much uncertainty removed from this picture as possible.
I don't know about King Joey, but I'm certainly not saying we should be satisfied with JJ only making minimal progress. My only thing is...and not so much here as other places...the rhetoric is that he showed NO improvement...and that simply isn't true. I just think that...based on camp reports...people were expecting a 'new' Jefferson. There was no way that could happen in that amount of time. - Also, one thing I'm looking forward to is not so much that LSU will be so improved, nobody can hang with us. But that there is no Auburn type dominant team this year. Let's face it, although it took a while to get going, when AU got going, they were nearly unstoppable. With the way things are looking at the moment (remember it's only April), there isn't a team that even has a remote likelihood of that kind of emergence...except one...LSU. - Bama will be very good, and likely the toughest test LSU has next season. But AU lost a TON...not just Cam. That said, I think losing Cam alone would result is a downward trend for them, but throw in the key losses on defense (Fairley) and the lines, and they're in a rebuilding year. Of course, there's always someone that can step UP to another level, like MSU. But quite frankly, until MSU can display they can beat even a BAD LSU team, I just don't buy the hype. Arkansas is another story. They can beat LSU even with a decent team...and LSU a NC caliber team. That's the one I come closest to fearing. But even then, I don't see them winning the conference...just maybe beating LSU. LSU has to learn to get up for that game...because Arkansas has it down pat.
