I really loved watching TM7 play and I hope he gets his life together. I do not think he was a dominant cover guy. He was great as a rover and someone the offense had to account for, but I am hoping the front 4 guys put enough pressure to make up for his abscense. As far as corner backs I think we will be o.k.
LSU is too talented for the loss of any one player to derail a season. I'm more worried about any lingering ghosts of the BCS game debacle in Les' mind. Mathieu scored four defense and special team touchdowns last season that we must replace. If we do that, we will be fine on the field. Where his loss hurts us perhaps is in publicity. Badger was a PR goldmine for LSU last season. National attention that you cannot buy, beg, borrow or steal. It kept LSU on the front page and high in the polls. All that media attention will likely go to Southern California this year.
The point was, EVERY decent team has fast small guys. WRs, CBs, whatever. "Speed kills" is more about DL speed. Ask Oregon...
Bottom line though, even before his dismissal, we were an injury away from having a freshman starter at CB. Now, that's a fact of life, and we'll have a freshman starting at nickel, and a freshman at dime. Slice it how you want, but that's scary. FWIW, the freshman starting at CB now is probably the most athletic person on the team...the ENTIRE team. But he's still a freshman. And the ones that will play in nickel and dime packages are also phenoms, but they're phenomonal....freshman. Luckily we don't have the ridiculous schedule like last year, and have a few games to get them experience/try different things. Washington will test them, assuming their QB can stay upright.
Well said. That has been the SEC's strong point for years. I remember GDF bragging about how fast LMJ et all were. Basically Mingo etal were just as fast in the critical LOS area and the Oregon backs couldn't escape. The lines of Big 10 Pac 10 or any conference were blown up by SEC d lines.
Right, but even after 6 straight, people outside of SEC country just don't get it...including most analysts.
I was emphasizing. . LSU was better than the Ducks and deserved to win, I'd love to see a rematch. The SEC d lines are special, I'm not denying that now, but don't let it go to your heads. I don't know why exactly, but SEC offenses don't seem all that great. I think this makes your National Championship streak vulnerable,.. that's my hope anyhow and I'm clinging to it.
That's what I always say. Pac 12 has fully embraced the idea that offense wins championships. The spread is the latest hope that it can be done. The SEC is the reminder that it takes a complete team on both sides of the ball to consistently make it happen. Otherwise, a great D will measure a great O, most of the time. Ball control, ball control, ball control. Trench warfare. Going the long way on offense sets up the rest of the team. We go the long way because we want to, not because we have to. Being physical you want to punish the other team. A ball control offense matches up with any opponent you play, very, very important. It keeps your defense rested. It totally controls momentum. LSU and Alabama has consistently done this and they still score nearly 40 points a game. We see lots of short fields, turnovers and second string quarterbacks.
True Dat !! Look at what the Big10 (especially Ohio State and Michigan) used to do when they had dominant teams.
