LSU is ranked 98th (out of 117) in turnover margin. The interesting thing of note though is even though our offense gets most of the blame, the statistics prove that our defense has been pretty poor at forcing turnovers. The following shows a comparison of the teams competing for the National Championship as well as Georgia. I think this will be the key to the SEC Championship. Keep our T/O margin at -1 or better and LSU wins, otherwise it will be very difficult to pull out a victory. Notice how good Georgia has been at forcing T/Os. ....... T/O Forced Net T/O Rank USC 13 34 21 1 Georgia 15 27 12 9 Penn St 20 24 4 40 Texas 18 21 3 46 LSU 21 13 (8) 98 Now I'm not suggesting we don't have a good D. However, it seems to me the style of defense (blitzing DBs and LBs with a very physical D line) we play should result in many more FORCED turnovers. Maybe it's as simple as our DB's have dropped a few too many (I can remember plenty). Can anyone help explain? The other thing that is odd is that LSU seems to excel at getting behind the eight ball and working our way out of it. The only game this year in which we've been on the positive side of the T/O margin (+1 with Tenn) we lost. Go figure. Thoughts?
LSU's d has been pretty stellar and bo pelini's d are usually tops of the takeaway list as well. it just so happens that these players who are playmakers have seemed to drop crucial picks, such as prude vs Ark, and laron who later made up for a drop. the fumbles are more of chance than anything else. my biggest worry is leonard pope their huge TE. I assume jessie daniels will have this responsibility since he's the SS and that doesn't bode well.
Pope is key. They won't be able to run on us, unless we have to sellout to cover His big ass over the middle. I too think JD will be man up on Pope, gonna take one hell of an individual effort to eliminate him from there gameplan.
Pope is dangerous, but do not forget DJ Shockley's scrambling ability. That scares me a little considering the Applachain State qb had success scrambling. I believe that we will hit him so hard the first few times he tries to run that he will stop!:geauxtige
So do ours but thats not saying much. I have never seen more drops in a season from a team on any level. Our WR's have serious butterfingers.
Pope is dangerous but Massaquoi has become our number 1 receiving threat. We don't use Pope as much as we should.
I think Shyrone Carey could be the key, given Addai's injury problems. Most likely he won't, since he only gets on the field for pregame warm-ups.
Massaquoi is called MoMass by most of the Georgia fans. Georgia runs a double tight end formation that Richt will probably use to counter the blitz. Shockley can audible Milner (TE) into motion and that leaves a linebacker in single coverage on Pope if Milner ends up blocking the DE. But Milner can also keep running. http://forums.onlineathens.com/cgi-bin/bb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=005849#00000 Pope and Milner have accounted for about 25% of the Georgia passing game. Pelini is going to have to figure out how Vaughn and Landry will be most effective on the weak side.
