I'll buy it too... he said on the radio that the problems LSU has this year comes from one thing.. they young guys dont want to earn it... thats it.. thats what it comes down to.. lack of leadership.. he puts the blame on his predecessor.. he says that because of what he had to work with when he came in, he had to play alot of players as freshmen, when idealy, he would have redshirted them.. that eliminated a year of their eligibility.. so players that graduated last year would still be around had he come in with decent upperclassmen.. this, combined with the juniors leaving last year really screwed LSU, leaving them with very few seniors. I think if Addai and Carey had stayed healthy last year, we might not have seen some of the other running backs. Im sure he isnt too happy about playing doucet and carter immediately, but with the lack of depth at WR, it was a must.
I'm sure there's some truth to what he says, but blaming a guy who hasn't been here in FIVE YEARS for problems this season seems, well, weak as all get out.
I dont agree at all with the Saban bashing, frankly-its redicilous. The abundance of 4 and 5 star atheletes that LSU is accumulating is different than anything we or these coaches have had before. They want quicker gratification for less work (similar to some tiger fans). Last years team was one that had seen humiliation and used it as motivation. We had a seasoned mix of talented and ambitious juniors and seniors. Now we have younger guys (the youngest in the SEC as a matter of fact) that need to experience a variety of ups and down to form the maturity needed to develop and sustain a killer instinct. This is a real challenge for the coaches and I'll take these guys over the opinion of anyone on these boards, any day. I think its really sad that we have to resort to attacking these same coaches that won us our first national championship in 45 years and the SEC title 2 of the last 3 years. Nothing about the quality of our coaches has changed, they didnt all the sudden forget how to do their jobs. They are adjusting as well as any coaching staff in the country would i.m.o. Try supporting these guys for once, you might not feel like such a heel after things turn around.
I don't think he came out and said ANYTHING about DiNardo, but Travis Daniels should be a RS Junior this year. Matt Mauck should still be here. Marquise Hill should still be here. Blue Gay should be a RS Senior this year. Does anyone doubt the difference these players would make? I buy into that philosophy somewhat...but I think it has more to do with the defections last year. I was really surprised when we lost Clayton, to be honest. I thougth he'd stay all four years. What was REALLY amazing was Mauck. I don't understand the mentality. This team was loaded for BEAR with him back at the controls. Marquise Hill is the same thing...Wouldn't you guys think that Hill being back would do wonders for depth on the O-Line? This has more to do with the defections from last year than this year. Also, having to burn scholarships on guys like Blue Gay & Travis Daniels early on in his tenure hurt the depth in the defensive backfield (Would Gay not have been an amazing help this year, instead of being the dime corner for the Pats?). I think he meant in terms of last year. Because Mauck, Hill, & Clayton could have all returned, with good reason, and it not raised all that many eyebrows. I would understand Clayton the most. Mauck the least. Hill was just a bad situation with agents. This team would be light years different had Mauck still been here. Bottom line. I think you misinterpreted exactly what he meant. He's had to play youth on the D-line, in the backfield, and at wideout because of losing guys like Devery & Clayton...
Your entire thesis is based on a poster here who I think misinterpreted the coach's quotes... You tend to go off on some SERIOUS tangents based on daisy-chained logic...Again, another example of you typing before you think. You have crystallized this opinion in your mind about Saban saying that this is an excuse, when I'm of the opinion he said no such thing. It's problems like this that create dissent in the fanbase, and you seem to be a continual source of it...My advice is this...Type out your responses in Word, then re-read it while you spell-check it. Take a step back. Use some perspective. Is going off on a tangent like this and cursing in reference to our head coach and saying he's a chickensh!t because of something he may or may not have even said worth all your grandstanding? I don't think so. Not many here do. Are we all wrong?
I think everyone on this board supports the Tigers heart and soul, but some of the explanations being offered just don't seem to pan out. This team is young, Flynn and Russell are young but they are second year Tigers. Tennessee is winning with true freshmen so the youth excuse can only go so far. Alabama is playing better than expected with a new QB. Yes, Saban is bringing in talented recruits but it seems nonsensical to say that it is expected for a blue-chip player to want things easy and not work as hard. Miami, FSU, Oklahoma have been bringing in top-flight talent for years and they keep winning year after year seemingly always in the NC Title hunt. I think most Tiger fans realize that back-to-back NC are rare and it was unlikely to happen this year but it is reasonable to expect this team, with all its talent, to be in the hunt. LSU, instead, was out of the hunt for even the SEC West before Sept was out an the remaining games are no sure victories considering how the team is playing. :geaux: :usaflagwa
I wasn't a member of this forum last year, so I don't know what was said about coaching or Matt Maulk last year after the Florida Game, but I know some of the so called "Tiger" fans around my home town and at work had nothing but negative things to day about Matt and Nick Saban. Well the rest is history folks and I got my say after the Sugar Bowl. I think that we have young players and lack leadership on the field due to that. Lets support our team and coaches. Thanks Tiger71334:lsug:
Yeah...Maintaining a Top 10 ranking, which would have meant beating at least two of three against AU, UF, and UGA, was real real logical. Playing a new quarterback should mean we jus go out and play like gangbusters... Tennessee looked real good beating Florida in the final seconds at home...and damn didn't they look good against Auburn at home! We are a few bounces of the ball from having a better conference record than Tennessee...and what would you say then? Well, they're playing better, but our team has fared better from a results standpoint. That's just it...It's fools gold. We all know Georgia isn't the team everyone thinks they are. Conversely, we all know Auburn isn't that much better than we are. Which means that Tennessee ain't all that good. They have just played a TAD bit better in certain situations. We both beat UF in the last seconds (we did it on the ROAD; they did it at home). To compare us to Tennessee is silly. We're as good or better, even with our quarterback situation. What they DO have is a fanbase that will get behind their coach. I mean, look at what Phat Phil is going through, and you don't hear them question him, hardly at all. When Kelly Washington was holding his own press conferences at his apartment and telling the media there where he thought Fulmer was making mistakes each Saturday, the fanbase didn't want to skin Fulmer alive while he tried to get that cancer and isolate him from the team. They're not p!ssed at him right now over the whole Bama/NCAA/lawsuit fiasco. We on the other hand, are p!ssed because Saban thought he could get a year extra out of a steady NC winning QB and he couldn't. He thought a 5th year senior would be ready to take the next step and he's not. He thought that a 2nd year frosh quarterback with all the talent in the world would have the work ethic to match. He doesn't. We want to hold all this aganist him. We shouldn't. It's like saying that it's Saban's fault because Ronnie Prude, Travis Daniels, and Cory Webster have dropped pick-6's throughout the year. Like saying Mario Stevenson's foot injury is Saban's fault. Like saying that Cory Webster's knee getting popped was Saban's fault. Like Travis Daniels hamstring is his fault. Like Marquise Hill's contact with an agent was his fault. We have growing pains, people...We have not been here before as a fanbase, and we have gone from being-as Saban says-process oriented to result oriented. The process isn't being followed this year-especially by our future starter at quarterback. It shows. But, we need to wake up about comparing ourselves to other teams...It's a wash...We're better than UT, and I think we're honestly just AS good as UGA...and I think we ALL know that AU publicly was afraid of playing us later in the year, and BARELY beat us on the damn road...What are you guys all whining so much about? It's growing pains...
Blaming Dinardo is really, really weak. The poor guy is really struggling at Indiana, talk about kicking a guy when he's down. But, Nick burning redshirts and players leaving early is par for the course. Up here in the big ten country Nick was known for burning redshirts, can't blame him given the rebuidling job he inherited at MSU and LSU, but cut Nick a lot of slack. He's won a national championship, while poor Gerry is getting his butt handed to him on a silver platter up here every week. For Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State Indiana has been what the doctor ordered.
I don't doubt it. One of our biggest problems is that players don't stick around at LSU, they jump to the pros too soon. But that is a problem that takes a while to fix. Players mostly stay at OU, TEX, Mich, etc . . . because those kids feel they owe it to the university to stick around (to win, and possibly get a higher draft spot the next year). At LSU they jump early. I have no doubt this would be a different season had the Jr's stuck around for their SR year. Players leaving early disrupts the talent cycle, because of it young players have to step up too soon. The problem is that a freshman and soph can't have the same expectation level as a jr or sr. I don't care how many stars a new recruit has behind his name, you can't replace good general team leadership jr's and sr's provide a team. Talent and paper matchups do not win football games.
