In recent years, I feel that our offense has not improved as much as possible (during the course of a season) because of the mindset to "play it safe" with the lead. For capable opponents, I can understand the thinking because our D is so dominant and the only jeopardy to a W might be an offensive turnover or pick-6 that reverses momentum and gets the other team in the game. On the other hand, playing conservative can cost you a win every once in awhile like the Clemson game. For easy wins, our backups are rarely allowed to use the playbook. Mett only had about 10 pass attempts in 2011 despite many games that were blowouts in the 2nd half. Will Cam be able to make the offense more multi-dimensional by the end of the season than it is now? Do you want Rivers and Jennings using the full playbook in games 2 & 3 when we are up by 30+ or should we handle these games similar to past years?
That Ole Miss game and Mett's bootleg gave me the thought for my questions above. I don't even think Mett threw a pass against Ole Miss even though we were up by 50. Before the 2012 season, Miles made an odd comment that he considered bringing Mett in for the LSU-Bama debacle instead of Lee. I think (?) he decided against it because of Mett's lack of experience. If Mett had more game-reps in 2011, would the decision by Miles have been any different?
The lack of in-game adjustment to matchups and defensive schemes has been a hallmark of the LSU "offense" since 2008 under Crowton. What I've seen particularly since the OC-by-committee years is that the committee develops a game plan that cannot, under any circumstances, be deviated from. If a particular play works or a formation put a defense off-balance, it was never seen again. It felt as if the plan was to have diversity in play-calling for its own sake while being mostly predictable and not really diverse. It was as if Les didn't have confidence in his staff to adjust on-the-fly. And since that has never really been Les' strength as a coach to begin with, it leaves us in the ditch, and gives rise to the theories that Les "handcuffs" his OC and really calls all the plays. I just hope the Cameron hire signals a sea change in that mentality.
I want our offense to continue having an identity of a physical running game and that fits well with our personnel. I also want to be able to do more things in the passing game if we need to and (IMO) that comes from getting reps with live bullets. When the season started last year, Mett looked like he had never seen an SEC pash rush. It felt like it took him half a season to understand what to do if someone misses a blocking assignment. There are elements of the game that you can't duplicate in practice. If a play breaks down and Mett has to roll out and improvise with a WR, will they have enough reps to be on the same page? If Mett gets hurt at some point during the season, I want Jennings and/or Rivers to have thrown a variety of passes in mop up duty. Of course, if Jennings is playing in special packages, he would have the necessary experience.
