I am not ready to come down on him, but things don't look so good for him when "the lights are on". I think his game plans are good, but we don't look mentally ready. Saban left us in a difficult position, but we needed a guy who has championship/big game experience. Now we have to hope he can learn to be one like Saban did. Honestly, Pelini saves our bacon a lot, and the offensive problems with running the football seem to be more from Miles and this "hot hand" garbage, than Jimbo. I thought Jimbo called a good game down the stretch and put us in a position to win, we just did not get any breaks. There is a lot of football left Arkansas and AU each lose one game and we win out then we can create a 3 way tie, and how the tie breaker would go I don't know. Here is a snippet from CFN...I really didn't want to put this loss on Miles as the gameplan seemed to put us position to be successful (after watching Memphis this year believe me when I say we are well coached) but as this article shows the trend is starting to be scary... from CFN.com Ever since the Les Miles era started, the spotlight games for the Bayou Bengals--against Auburn (twice), Florida (twice), at Alabama (last season), and versus Georgia (last year's SEC title game)--have involved boatloads of mistakes. Last year, the aftermath of Katrina gave the Tigers a legitimate reason for being rusty and rough-edged, but this season, LSU is still Miles away from looking well-schooled and alert in a huge contest. The mistake bug is something LSU's coaching staff has to address if the Tiger program is to ever reach the proverbial next level... the level Florida shows every sign of attaining after this huge breakthrough in the Urban Meyer era. http://cfn.scout.com/2/576843.html
I agree but JR faulters in the big games also. The thing I blame the coaches for is that the LSU players got themselves in a hole with all the mistakes. They got themselves down 23-7 in the 3rd qtr. At that point the gameplan has to change and adjustments need to be made, but nothing changed until midway into the 4th when they just throw 10yd passes in the hurry up. I kept yelling in the 3rd that the hurry up needs to used. UF was rotating fresh D-line players and in hurry up that wouldn't happen, plus they stuck with running the ball with AB and JV and didn't have our best RB at the moment Scott in there. Even when they started exclusively throwing in the 2nd half they never even thought about going long. The defense was content to give them the 10 yd passes underneath, that's when you pump fake and go deep. The QB coach still has a lot of work to do on JR. Teach him to pump fake, check off his #1 WR and go to #2 or #3, use the tight end, stop audibles to run when there are 8 in the box. He did that at least twice yesterday and he did in the AU game at the end also. The players got the team in a hole but when you get in a hole you have to change the original plan and don't be stubborn and stick with the same game plan when down by 3 scores. THis is ridiculous. Players will typically respond when a coach starts changing the game plan and starts taking more risks. It shows he has confidence in them and it can spark players when the coach tries to make things happen. If you just keep doing the same thing when you're way behind that doesn't motivate anybody.
