Playcall Analysis pt.1 - Jimbo Haters almost completely WRONG

There is a strain of LSU fan, many of whom appear to sit near me in the South Endzone, who are happier when LSU's playing badly. They'd rather yell "I told you so!" rather than "Good game, Coach!," because the former makes them feel smart.

Many of those people also apparently haunt this board, given the number of threads griping about Jimbo's "conservative" playcallng. It's more fun to be mad, and rip the coaching staff, than do the homework, I suppose. So I've done it for you, the masses, right here in this post. The following is a breakdown of the official play-by-play from the LSU Athletic Dept. (available here: http://www.lsusports.net/downloads1...SPID=2164&DB_OEM_ID=5200&SPSID=27815#GAME.PLY)

The summary is that LSU's overall playcalling Friday was balanced perfectly, 50-50 ratio. LSU was more aggressive in the 1st half, but that can be explained by their success on the 1st drive of the 2nd half. LSU also ran on 1st down only about 60% of the time, and 4 of those were either designed passes that Russell ended up scrambling for, or 1st and goal plays. Take out the scrambles, and you're nearly at 50-50 again.

This took me 10 minutes, by the way. About as long as it takes to submit a post titled "JIMBO SHOULD BE FIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", or some other such nonsense. So if you'll indulge me, here goes:

Total plays: 68 (includes plays called back)
Total run plays: 34
Total pass plays: 34

That's right, kids, exactly as much run as pass. And for those who think LSU needs a 60-40 ratio of pass to run, you're asking for 6.8 more passes, which would have given JR 36 passing attempts on a day in which his WR corps had already dropped 7 passes. Let's go on.

1st Quarter: 6 run, 7 pass
2nd Quarter: 7 run, 12 pass
1st HALF: 13 run, 19 pass
3rd Quarter: 15 run, 7 pass
4th Quarter: 6 run, 8 pass
2nd HALF: 21 run, 15 pass

OK, load up Jimbo Haters. LSU turtled up in the 2nd half, and stopped throwing, right? Right, but here's why. Of the 15 runs in the 3rd quarter, 8 of them came on the first drive, when LSU marched down the field to take a commanding 19-3 lead. Also, one of the scrambles and one of the 1st-and-goals came on that drive, which skews the numbers some. But the fact remains, LSU didn't "turtle up" so much as try to commit to the run with a) a 16 point lead, b) WR's with dropsy and c) ARK's apparent inability to stop the run since LSU managed to score on 10-play drive with an 80-20 run/pass ratio.

So let's review. 1st half, LSU passed 19 of 32 times for a 59% clip. In the 2nd half, LSU passed only 15 times out of 36 times for 41%, but two of those 2nd-half plays were passes that broke down into scrambles, and LSU had 1st and Goal once in the 2nd half as well. Furthermore, LSU spent the first 4:10 of the 3rd quarter ramming it up ARK's butt on the ground, so why fix what ain't broke. Long/Short, the anti-Jimbo crowd on this board has VERY little to objectively criticize about the overall playcalling.

 

Wow, nice work!! Funny how the numbers reflect reality so well, huh?

 

Great post.

Thanks for spending the 10 minutes.

 

Good job thread poster. Nice post. :thumb:

 

Nice work!!:thumb: :thumb:

I'm not really surprised that fact has caused some whiners not to post on this thread yet.

 

Where do you sit in the South endzone ?

 

Very nice. You know...anything is going to look conservative when you have 7 dropped passes, many of which would have gone for well over 10+ yards. We complete those passes and all of a sudden it looks like our offense is running wide open.

 

I will save "them" some time and sum up their responses:

"..... but a short pass is the same as a run..."

 

Hey Martin, do you sit in South Section 17 or 16?

 

why run so much? i mean, bennie scored on a post so jimbo should do that every play. clm needs to get rid of jimbo and see if amadee will come back.