We didn't blow them out on purpose

:lol:

Washington will be a much improved team this year, but we made them look better than they are. You think it is crazy to think that we did this on purpose. I don't. It has already been pointed out that our playcalling was so bad that it was as if it was designed to be counter-productive...

After experience with the highest level of folks in business, I recognize that high level people think at a high level about the intricacies that most folks think "just happen". What would force the team to get better? What would help us win games in the SEC? Etc, etc.

It is not crazy to believe what happened was by design.

 

Basically, all of your posts suggest that this coaching staff/team engaged in the mentality of playing not to lose.

So, we are left with two possibilities:

1. The coaching staff tried not to lose by playing as mediocre as they could on purpose without blowing it. ["Our offensive playcalling was such that our OL could not succeed... of course it is going to make our OL (and RB's) look bad." -you]

2. LSU struggled because they underestimated their opponent and were out-coached for a good portion of the game, while being out-played on both sides of the ball. Fortunately, LSU's talent, adequate QB play and red zone defense kept LSU in the game long enough for a win.

I'll take #2. Your very first post in this thread is almost insane, but I am holding out hope that you are sitting in front of your computer giggling at the people who are agreeing with you. Either that, or you are trying really hard to pump sunshine in a very strange way.

 

I'm no sunshine pumper. I'm rational in the face of anomolies.

I'm not here claiming that LSU is going to win the NC. I'm just saying that we're better than we showed against Washington. How much better? I'm not sure yet.

As for option 1 vs 2, they are not the only options and you misinterpreted what I said. I am not saying that the coaches played not to lose (or that we underestimated the opponent). I'm saying that we played to win, but not by much.

As for thinking I may be joking - how can anyone watch our playcalling in that game & believe that we wanted to score points? Their DB's were overmatched. Our coaches recognized it because we scored when we felt like it. We just chose not to fully utilize it.

 

Did we allow them to score when we felt like it too?

 

I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of our defense's performance. I think it was primarily related to a lack of intensity, which a lot of excuses could be made for, but I don't expect it to be an issue all season.

 

I didn't really look at the number of lineman per say, but it seems as though we were out numbered at the line of scrimage during some or most of those running plays to not block the LBs. Just my observation. But I didn't go through the video with a fine tooth comb so to speak.

 

I just finished watching some of the game over. The biggest concern to me was the o-line play. The Husky defenders getting after JJ were running some simple stunts every now and then, and our guys failed to handle it. One guilty party on occasion was CB, our all SEC tackle. You can be as big and as physical as you want, if you have two o-line blocking on one man, and another loops around and takes a free run at your QB, you lost. LSU was not man handled up front, they were outsmarted numerous times. I like that, because that can be corrected, and coach Stud has to do it.

On defense, someone else mentioned the 2 DE failed to keep containment resulting in some big plays around the end (maybe Islstl?). I think that happened also. Levingston was starting his first game, and Alem was in a new role, an every down end, not just a pass rush specialist. We sort of had two new inexperienced DE in there, and their play was not always smart. Coach Hailey needs to get that fixed. I think that's a coachable fix, so right now, I'm not too worried. Levingston also did some good things, Okie mentioned he got his hands up to attempt to block passes at the line, and that looked good.

The line play looked poor, but I didn't see anyone getting physically whipped. I think this team will make progress, because the errors are coachable. Let's see what happens next week.

 

Man, if we really didn't score more points on purpose, and we were intentionally trying to put more pressure on our own defense, no wonder JayB was so disgruntled.

I'm surprised by that too, if really true...I don't like our coaches playing with fire like that - it's dangerous and could backfire big time. I don't think they'd really game plan to barely win. I just don't know.

Not that I don't respect CParso's opinion or anything.

 

I don't think anyone says we planned to not score points. We planned to score points with a vanilla offense and to be able to keep them from scoring with a basic defense. We came after them on D a bit more often, but we got burned a couple of times when we did. We missed some basic assignments in our basic offense and that resulted in Jefferson under pressure and not being able to make a play because he was running for his life, or just had to throw the ball away. That's how potential drives stalled out and we had to punt. Maybe we had to keep things basic because the new players didn't have the more advanced plays down yet.