After hearing and seeing all the talent we had last year and it's been some time since the Florida & Auburn games I'm wanting to revisit why we lost these games. This is what I remember: Auburn: Bad QB decisions on the last drive. And yes, I do remember the bad call. You can't let a call decide the game. Florida: Turnovers, way to many turnovers. I'm going off memory here. Anyone else have a take on this? I hope we can avoid a re-play of this next year. I also realize getting calls and the ball bouncing your way is also key in a long season not to mention the BCS mess.
We should have won the Auburn game but those damn refs....We lost to Florida because they were the better team.
Coach Miles already apologized about the Auburn game, after 3 yards and a cloud of dust, sometimes taking three downs to do this and after three quarters of this and not feeling comfortable about playing the rookie running backs because of potential fumbles, LSU went airborn but Auburn's defense ready for this because they were leading and it was the fouth quarter. LSU the better team but..... The Florida game, LSU punt returner Jackson I believe fumbled punt and lost it, how many Florida points from this I do not remember. Florida kicked off to LSU receiver, Doucet I believe, bounced off his head/shoulder; whatever, went into end zone but a nice recovery by LSU. Cost LSU a saftey, 2 points and they had to punt it. Florida with the momentum with there running QB Tebow, threw the 35 yd TD. Coach Miles now changed to the best receiver's hands in the SEC, Buster Davis and of course no more LSU fumbles the rest of the year I believe. If LSU went to the SECCG, coach Miles states LSU would win and beat Florida. This I also believe is true and maybe LSU beats Ohio State for NC. That being said, we must thank coach H. Nutt of Arkansas for calling off his blitzkreig running attack which steam rolled LSU's defense to the tune of maybe 398 yds.(is this a record) !! because his change to the feeble passing attack and their dropped passes gave or helped LSU with the win.
The main reason we lost to Auburn in Florida is because they scored more points than we did. Factoid... LSU is undefeated when they score more points than their opponents. Conversely, LSU has never one a game when trailing after 4 quarters. If you don't believe me you can look it up.
Intrepid's first paragraph sums it up pretty well. Poor coaching setup the failure in the Auburn game. Poor execution didn't help, but poor coaching is one of the primary causes. The Florida loss is more of a result of the Auburn loss. With that said, Miles has come a long way in understanding both his team and the league. He has surrounded himself with top tier coaches and players. He has two more campaigns to merit a serious contract extension (His current contract runs through 2010). An SEC Championship in either of the next 2 seasons gets him a very nice, and well-deserved extension. How much short of that will open the floor for discussion. But with the talent on the field and the quality of asst coaches he has retained, there is little reason to believe the man with the hightop cap won't be successful in his tenure.
We lost both games because of poor special teams play. Offense and defense basically played well enough to win. We lost to Auburn because we did not have a FG kicker capable of hitting from 50 yards. We had the opportunity twice but could not take them and could have won on the final drive with a field goal. We lost to Florida because of dropped punt and kickoff returns that became TD's for the opponents.
You could also factor in that winning on the road in a SEC stadium is hard enough no matter how good you are.
The "Best" team doesn't always win. With Florida, we lost to the team that won the NC. That game was the worst we played all season. Fumbles at critical times, we seemed to lack focus. AU, despite the obvious we still were in a position to win it and just fell short. You have to be good and lucky to win a NC. My Soph. year in High School, we beat Dequincy twice in District play and won District without a loss. Dequincy went on to win the State Championship that year.........everyone knew we were better, just didn't get it done. This year, Pine Prairie and Sacred Heart finish #1 & #2 in District and lose first and second round games, respectively. Mamou's coach had picked up their unis when they were notified they'd be in the playoffs and they made it to the State Tourn. but drew a strong John Curtis team. Happens all the time on all levels.
Against Auburn , we had 10 drives. Four of which ended due to questionable calls .The Jacob Hester catch for a first down that was ruled an incompletion on third and three,the no call on pass interference in the end zone,the no call on the last drive when there should have been SOMETHING called ,either interference or holding and there is one other that slips my mind at the moment.The fact is ,we got hosed in the Auburn game time after time after time. As for Florida , we had our chances in that game, but one play sticks with me.The play before Jamarcus Russell fumbled the center snap on the one Hester appeared to score.It was close as to whether his elbow hit before the ball crossed the goal line.If he scores on that play we are up 14-7 with momentum instead of tied at 7 with florida having stopped us at the goal line.Hester scores there,different game.But that is how the ball sometimes bounces.
