Lord... 38 points. Offense had to overcome 38 points. The offense gave up some points despite being near perfect. The job of the defense is to not allow scores, which they couldn’t do. Against Vandy. Look at the other teams since 2018 who share that distinction - not a group to be lumped in with.
“We suck at zone coverage” Understatement of a 4 game season. I am starting to think that the professor has made the schemes too complicated. Too many players with different roles in various packages. Guys are having to think about what their role is and then how to react. Compound that with lack of chemistry due to the number of different personnel groups, and the defense loses aggressiveness. Everyone has noted the poor tackling. i noticed several instances where the defender (Stingley for sure on one play) where players are more interested in try ing to strip the ball away as opposed to getting the guy to the ground.
If you all remember, Aranda said with the talent he has he could experiment with more complex defenses this year. It looks like the experiment has failed. Yes we’ve had injuries that have hampered its impact but they’re too many mistakes and too much sloppy tackling so far. He needs to simplify and focus on the basics, tackling, tackling, tackling. We have enough talent that will make hat work.
We Scared Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens ... ahem Who lost our W~I~T~H~E~R~I~N~G D~E~F~E~N~S~E ... Part 1: Games 1-4 ... Oh ye of so little Faith ... Oh ye who forgot the two goal line stands against Texas ... I’ll give you kittens a battle cry Remember Austin! Remember shutout halves! Oh ye of little Faith ... The Season is long and the season is hard ... And the players must last through the Gridiron battles to WIN THE WAR Part 2: Games 5-8 The final chink in the offensive line armour has been repaired and Eddie Ingram is back ... The Preseason ALL-AMERICAN TOP RANKED BOOKENDS will be back from their injuries ... Tyler Shelvin has been an animal in the middle The new linebacking Corp is getting seasoned The young corners are being tested and the turnovers are starting to come down like rain Utah State Scrimmage ... LSU 74 - UT ST 6 will show America what Dominant football is They won’t score a TD on LSU in two weeks I’d say more but don’t want to ruin a surprise that this LSU team has in store for its opponents in games 5-8 ... It should start becoming clearer after Utah State game
What’s more Everyone’s whining about the tackling ... Tackling will be addressed ... Players are trying to strip the ball and get turnovers Solution: Orgeron said they go back to special drills to focus more on tackling What’s more Everyone’s whining about Defensive Team Injuries & Pass Rush Rashard Lawrence, Glen Logan, K’Lavon Chaisson all missed the game. Divinity went out with a sprained left ankle in the second quarter and didn’t return. Safety Todd Harris is out for the season. Neil Farrell and Tyler Shelvin were not in the game when Vandy went 7-0 ... They were being punished (not starting) for missing practice time during the week. After being punished, both go in and Vandy went 3 and out and 3 and out again. Then they whine about leadership and then they whine about the offense scoring too fast ... How about some testicular fortitude Well Kittens?
I love watching this high powered offense. It's a great change for LSU. That said, I'd much rather have a stiffling defense. At the end of the day a great D tends to beat the great O more times than not. We don't have the run game we need on top of it all. Our D needs to improve, hopefully, it does. Still in all, we lack premier DL. We don't have playmakers that rush the passer like in the past. Outside of Chaisson, no one consistently gets up field. Miles really left us dry with his last few years of recruiting. Coach O has stepped up the recruiting and coaching up of kids this year. Hopefully, we can get the premier lineman again and coach up the ones we have.
This. I prefer a strong defense a well. Our last 2 chamois championships prove that out. The sooners and buckeyes both came in with prolific offenses and we shut that shit down, holding them to well below their scoring averages of the respective seasons... To be clear, I don't want to go back to that static offense, but I would prefer to have a little more running plays mixed in with what were doing now... And more man coverage on d and less of the zone...
The problem is we can't run the ball. As a team LSU runs for an AVG of 4 yrds per carry. Most runs are for 2 or less or the occasional big run. The OL has made HUGE improvements, none of the boneheaded false starts that plagued LSU in recent seasons. However, the run blocking is non existent. We do need to run better though if we want to beat Bama and contend with the other top tier schools. The good thing is that we are on our way. The kids are getting coached up. We see progress again.
In as much as the glaring developmental trials of the zone defense has everyone up in arms, it truly is a necessary evil to work on the matter for improving a zone defense. It just is. We are going to face offences that will demand the use of a zone challenge or we will get walked on playing man. The chemistry is not going to build itself and as such, I approve in the direction Aranda is leading, just not the results. They have to continue working on some zone concepts or we are gonna lose games staying on man, no matter how loaded we are when the time comes. Let the man coach and let's see what October can bring.
