Ok, after the beating Fresno St. took at the hands of Boise St tonight, I'm beginning to wonder if Jimbo is as poor of an offensive coordinator as our scores indicate. Let's take a quick look.... Hawaii hangs 68 pts on Fresno Boise St hangs 45 pts on Fresno LSU hangs a modest 38 pts on Fresno (with all of our offensive weapons) Arkansas scores 27 against Auburn Ole Miss scores 17 against Auburn S Carolina scores 17 against Auburn Florida scores 17 against Auburn Wash St scores 14 against Auburn Tulane scores 13 against Auburn Buffalo scores 7 against Auburn LSU scores a very modest 3 against Auburn Texas A&M hangs 51 on ULL N Carolina A&T hangs 48 on ULL LSU puts up 45 Do these teams have more offensive talent than we do, or is it a matter of Jimbo not being creative enough and utilizing all the tools at his disposal? I vote the latter because we witnessed this same kind of offensive deficiency when Saban was here.
I'm not sure the Auburn game will tell you much, and I see 2 big differences: 1. Auburn saw LSU as their big game of the year, so they would be higher for LSU than anyone else. 2. The refs cost LSU, and we shot ourselves (JR fumble on the 1). We could have easily had 2 touchdowns, without the fumble and the refs. Against lesser teams, we've pulled off the dogs early, or we could have had more points. I like the way we've handled it to my eye. Scored enough, but not too much.
Do we have a problem? If we get a call here or there in the Auburn game, and that is a win. We out gained them yardage wise. The problem in the Florida game was stupid mistakes and turnovers. I really don't see it as us having some sort of fatal flaw that has to be corrected for LSU to be a national title contender. We played 2 very good teams on the road and had a chance to win both games. I see no problem. The ball just didn't bounce our way. Hopefully we'll get em next year when the schedule is more favorable. If you're going to compare scores (which I don't think is very useful), you should probably take into account the fact there was a huge rain storm before the Fresno game causing the field to be soaked and slippery. The new drainage system is good, but not that good. A big storm will limit what offenses can do.
houtiger got it right. seriously, you cant complain about scoring 35+ points, especially when your defense holds the other team to so little. the florida and auburn games, some were blowouts where they let the other team sneak in at the end. others were just teams jumping ahead like arkansas vs. auburn or points off turnovers like auburn vs. florida. honestly, dont worry about it, and dont look at boise state and hawaii for reference, they generally run up the score or dont have the defense to be able to pull their offense off, you didnt mention that hawaii allowed 37 and BSU allowed 21. you need to actually look at our offense to analyze it. our problem is run blcoking, although it has picked up recently and hopefully broussard's full return will be just that. weve had some tough calls but our pass efficiency is very good. this week against tennessee should answer a lot of your concerns.
that's a valid enough question, but a quick look at scores is no way to get at a good answer. soooo many things to consider, even if you know nothing about football====matchups, injuries, philosophy on running up score, defensive and special teams roles on the score.
Even the very best OC's become predictable if they hang around in one job too long. (I think that's an Abe Lincoln quote, but I'm not sure)
Exactly. Boise State and Hawaii need the style points to impress the bowl reps. LSU can just let past ticket sales speak for them and get the reserves some playing time.
IMO, our offense is conservative and not very creative with plays or playcallling since Jimbo has been here, especially in the big games. The one exception was '01 season when he let Davey air it out, knowing we had to outscore the opponent in some games. We also put up impressive numbers in '03 with a more balanced attack, but we went conservative in the big games. At the time, I blamed most of that conservatism on Saban. Once he got his defense working the way he wanted, I felt like he wanted Jimbo to play conservative and not lose the game on offense. He knew his defense could hold teams to very few points. I don't know if Jimbo is working for another conservative coach or it's really Jimbo that is the conservative coach. Either way, I wish we were a bit more creative and aggressive in big games.
