QB A He looks improved from last season. He definitely has embraced the role as leader of this offense. His decision making was impressive and the up tempo offense should actually help him this season. RB A Williams looks like a beast as a power runner to complement Guice. The freshman also looks like someone who could develop in the future as a feature back. Lots of depth, again. WR A A true freshman made his appearance and did not disappoint. Chark, like Etling, has embraced his role as leader of this unit. We have some good options from this unit to run the misdirection end around plays and they were very effective (7.2 yard average on 6 attempts). TE C Looks to be another season without a threat from this unit in terms of catching the ball. They will largely be asked to block and they need to excel in this capacity. OL B- They played decently well against a solid D-line. They could not spring anything for Guice, thus keeping him at a well below average 4.4 ypc. I felt like a lot of the yardage gained was just the talent of Guice. Red zone blocking was abysmal. We ran two play action pass plays that should have worked but were blown up as soon as the ball was snapped. DL B+ Solid performance. LaCoutoure was beasting. Gilmore is a clogger. That's a big boy. LB A Missing a starter with this unit and it did not seem to matter. Chaisson appears to be the next great rush end/LB. Corey Thompson looked great as well, he seems to have found his home at OLB vs safety. DB A How much depth do we have? It's utterly ridiculous. This is going to be the strength of the defense all year long. Lots of young men but the bright lights were not intimidating for them. Very impressive. ST C Missed a FG and the coverage team looked iffy. Chark looks ok returning the ball but we certainly don't appear to have a home run hitter that could help give us short fields or maybe even taking it to the house. Coaching A- Love the new look offense and the tempo. This will serve us very well going forward. Would like to see a little more play action on first down, especially inside the 10. Great defensive game plan kept BYU on their side of the field all game long. BYU is probably not a very good team, but LSU was totally prepared and was focused with the task at hand. Long gone are the days of a team that plays down to the competition for huge chunks of the game. Coach O has a killer instinct in him and wants to stomp you into submission.
I was impressed with Corey Thompson and even Ed Paris playing safety. Rashard Lawerence and Ed Alexander remind me of the days of Wroten, and Dorsey, and Kyle Williams, we finally got some big boys in the middle that can require double teams. Devin White will be an outstanding middle linebacker and when we get back Key, having him and Chiasson on the edges will be scary. The receivers looked good and when we get Dee Anderson back having Chark and Anderson, and then Gage, Dillon, and Davis behind them will benefit greatly. I like what I saw last night, I'm optimistic, but cautiously, this is a very young team with 2 true freshmen on the offensive line. With all the motion and tempo I think the penalties last night can easily be explained away and we will get better with every game. Myles Brennan also looked like he knew what he was doing back there and had a pretty good handle on running the offense. LSU should be a team to watch.
Eh, i'd be a little more generous than that. Towards the end of the game, the BYU returner took it at the goal line, and was upended on the 10 yard line in the open field. It was one of the best KO coverages of the night.
Considering BYU's starting field position was roughly around the 15-20 after LSU's mostly inability to kick it out of the end zone i'd agree. Also consider the youth on this team, this was the 1st game against a team that was playing their 2nd... I think LSU passed many eye tests with flying colors. For once I spent most of the night cheering and not cussing...
An easy fix. This was the first game with a lot of 1st time players seeing the field. Mistakes are bound to happen, i'm pretty confident a lot of kinks and wrinkles will be ironed out.
You know it was a strange feeling. We basically saw the same thing we have seen for years, an insane run to pass ratio, 57 rushing attempts 18 pass attempts, that's over a 3-1 ratio. The difference was the tempo and the pre snap motion, which makes a defense at least work for it and force them to go against their instinct. It's going to take an extremely disciplined defense to completely shut this offense down. LSU looks like it actually has a real offense and we know the defense is real. At no point last night except in the red zone did I feel like moving the ball was going to be a problem.
