I'd liked to have seen the offense keep the pedal to the floor myself. But, I can understand the coaches reining them in. The chance of injuries on a wet field probably doubles that of dry. All in all I think we did a pretty good job. Jumped out to a comfortable lead and then went vanilla on offense. Ga will be another great game.
BAD: CLM put his fingerprints on the offense way too early in the second half. I understand he does not like to embarrass other teams, but at 28-7, we go for a fake FG on 4th and 10?, then they drive 95 yds for a score. We quick strike them for 35-14 lead, then let them drive 84 yds for a score. We luck out and get the onsides kick after review, then run formation, run formation, run formation. We were lucky to they did not score w/about 2 min. left. If they had, we would have had to face another onsides kick. Just unnecessary. No reason to take the foot off of the accelerator so early. CCC should make an agreement w/CLM that the conservative stuff will only kick in w/a certain amount of time left in the 4th (say 5:00 or less), and we are up by at least 3 scores. Otherwise, it's business as usual on offense. The only reason I think he did the fake FG was literally to practice it in a game.
Actually, we didn't "luck out" on the onsides kick. The kicker clearly touched the ball before it went 10 yards. I thought it was a slam dunk that we'd get the ball until Blackledge and Nessler started talking about what a well-executed onsides kick it was. What? Parkey had the ball in his mitts at 9 yards. And the awful Ritter crew gives AU the ball. Once they went to review it, I expected them to allow AU to keep it. If we lucked out at all, it's that they actually made the right call on the review. I was also annoyed that we went super conservative--really in the 2nd quarter, too. With our defense this year, we need to score as often as we possibly can. The way I'm thinking of it, any possession where the other team doesn't score is a win, and it's a loss when we don't score on a possession. We can't trust our defense (and actually haven't been able to since the last possession of the Bama game last year.) As of late, we've had a tendency to allow the late scores that make a game closer than it actually was (other examples before the Bama game: South Carolina and A & M last year.) On the good side, we did get some turnovers last night, though we dropped a pick six.
With our wideouts, a wet field gives us a HUGE advantage in the passing game. Unbelievably huge. Yet we didn't try to exploit it to it's fullest potential. Not even close.
I'm a Miles liker But...there are two major things that are big negatives. 1. He is infuriatingly disconnected regarding time, score, and intensity levels needed to win a game. 2. Lack of ANY ability to express himself well in an extemporaneous format. Otherwise, he is excellent. I would also say that I unfortunately started thinking as I watched the second half Auburn intensity...that this is something LSU almost never shows. That is, the downright, we refuse to lie down and lose mentality. I hate to say that.
Its good to go to these forums and see some of the posts........ Did I mention, this was from a uga fan board? Sounds a lot like some LSU fans? There is only one SEC team that is 4-0, I wonder what team it is?
Bad - a mostly empty Death Valley in the second half. No 12th man support for the team in the first SEC game. Yes, I know it was wet but it wasn't long ago that Tiger fans sat through freezing rain and sleet in Shreveport for four full quarters to support the Tigers. I give the fans a D-. Fans complain about no intensity from the team.....
Scott Long posted this in his morning report, great insight... Like I said, we were up 21-0 and made it look too easy. Then they scored, we scored and this continued until victory formation.
