I for one, definitely respect your defense. The match-up against our offense will be good. The way I see it you will try to stop the run right away(which is not hard to do when we play good D's). I'm not sure if that means you'll put 8 in the "box" or play your base defense and see what happens, but I think that will be your #1 objective (make us one-dimensional). I believe our best way to counter this is for us to use our 3-WR + 1 RB set and try to get some mismatches in the secondary. If the safeties stay back (7 man front), then we try to run. If this doesn't work, we may have to go to the 4-wide package since we have an abundance of good recievers. I know you are # 2 in pass defense, so it does have me worried. Pray we don't use the dreaded 5-wides which are a disaster. Many of us are down on our OC right now, although he can sometimes surprise us with good play-calling. Any thoughts?
I doubt Saban will go the 8 man in the box route with youre passing threat, that would be scary. How good is your D against the run?
You have alot of good points. For LSU we must stop the run....and then get pressure on the QB. To do this for the game our O- must be able to get some first downs and move the chains. If we can send a rested D out to chase around Simms then LSU has a good chance to win. Good D with an O that will take what is given to them and some really good special team's play, and oh yes no big turn-overs, that should do it.
Here's a breakdown of the stats for each school: Offense: LSU Texas Rank Yards Rank Yards Rush 32 142.67 71 137.42 Pass 103 149.8 35 248.5 Total 89 342.2 50 385.92 Scoring 71 25.25 17 33.67 Defense: Rush 43 135.8 39 133.8 Pass 2 143 10 162.83 Total 5 278.83 12 296.58 Scoring 10 16.9 8 16 http://www.ncaa.org/stats/division1 football/national rankings/ia.html
SoLa: You beat me to it. I was just going to post the very same thing. We're pretty good against basic straight ahead running teams, but we have trouble with mobile QB's and runs out of the shotgun formation.
Hillbilly, that is what we will try to do. With both Mauck and Randall, we've run the QB draw out of the shotgun, and we've run the option to a limited extent. We're not the type of running team like Nebraska that will just try to pound you. We tend to mix it up a bit, with some off tackle runs by Davis and Toefield, and some draws. Our OC, Jimbo Fisher, will have to come up with a creative game plan to move the ball effectively on UT. As I've mentioned before, Saban and staff seem to coach well when they have nothing to lose. I look for some surprises from our offense on New Year's morning.
That is the kind of running game that gives us problems. We also do NOT make quick adjustments defensively. It killed us in the OU and Tech games and darn near did against Neb.
Thats funny you say that. One of the main reasons that I heard Carl Reese left LSU was because Dinardo thought that Reese made too many adjustments too quickly. That frustrated Reese. Maybe Carl has gotten away from that volutarily or because of Mack.
I have to say Saban and Staff have done well (at times) making adjustments, hopefully that'll continue. the best example is halftime of the S. Carolina and Ark games. One thing I like that has someone mentioned is Simms is not a versatile QB. That to me helps significantly. We've pretty much had to use a "spy" or play more contain most of the season b/c of so many versatile QB's we've faced. We can pin our ears back a little more now. With the running game.....that scares me. We've faded significantly over the season with our run defense. I don't think it has a thing to do with who the running back was either. We've just started getting blown off the ball more often. So whether it's Cedric Benson or Cedric the Entertainer running if we do not do a better job of controlling the line of scrimmage we're in for a lot of running yards. Offensively, i think we do what we've been doing except stop giving up on the run. At times this year (Va Tech, Ala) we've just stopped running the ball when i didn't think it was really necessary. We were gaining yardage and decided to throw more, why?, who knows. Hopefully, Skyler Green was not a flash in the pan.......get the guy the ball alot. Run the bubble and the QB option but this time pitch it a few times....(side note, on that last option against Ark when Randall ran 14yds for the 1st down if he would have pitched that time to Green he would have scored....there was no one on the other side of the field).
I think that one of Dinardo's complaints about Reese was that he tended to implement a new defense every week depending on the team that they were playing. That tended to leave the players confused sometimes (especially in big games against good teams... hmmm). So Dinardo hired someone who stuck to one defense no matter what (but that defense took 4 years to learn). I think that the teams that we played toward the end of the season figured out that it is nearly impossible to line up with two tight ends and run it down the LSU defense's throat. They figured out that spreading the field and softing us up with passes before running the ball out of the spread formation really worked against the LSU D. I expect that to be the UT game plan. I hope that we can fix that problem in the next few weeks. Not having to worry about the QB running it too much will help us defend that game plan.
