Thank you all for recognizing the part the O line played Jan 9. The loss was a O team loss and I will always believe Miles pulled his game plan because of offensive offensive performance. His hope and the Tigers hope that night was to keep it close and wait for a big play from the D or special teams to turn the momentum around like happened against both Ga & Ark. BTW it many ways it worked in a way that kept us close until the final TD in the 4th qtr. We just never got the big play. BTW again Less never explained because he didn't throw the players under the bus. I can't wait til Nov 3 because WE have the anger and Nicky just piled it on. Tiger revenge will be SWEET!!!
LSU and Bama were evenly prepared for the November match up and we won in their place. We had about the same time to prepare for the NC game but our guys let the '#1 ranking', awards, and honors of 'greatest team ever' get to their heads, while Saban had his team focused. We can't say the same for Les Miles, regardless of who was QB. We both wanted the NC, but Bama is the one that put in the work to get it. Les has shown to learn from his mistakes but this was one massive one that I wish we didn't have to learn this way...but moving forward it is something that I hope motivates next years team even more.
I agree with the fact Lee would not have made a difference (remember the 1st Bama game) because the OL had major issues. Lee completed 63% of his passes early on because he had protection. But he still threw off of his back foot and was obviously afraid to get hit. He had the "deer in the headlights" look in the first game when he threw two awful picks. The offense was partially dumbed down when Jefferson was re-instated because it had to be. Then Jefferson added to the problem when he only looked at his primary reciever, turn and run. As I said before, something was going on in the locker room with this team. I've never seen an OL perform that poorly. It looked like they were throwing the game at times. It was that bad.
Evidently some people have the inside track, or maybe even a "sixth sense" about these kinds of things. Everyone close to the locker room has refuted the rumors as garbage.