I mean its not like we didn't throw the ball. How can you go downfield when The OLine can't hold them for short passes? The few times Mett went deeper than quick slants he took shots. He threw the ball 27 times last night. Lee only had one game last year where he threw more than that and it was the shoot out with WVU, and then it was only 28 passes. Mett has averaged over 20 passes a game so far this year. Lee had 4 games last year where he played the majority of the snaps and threw less than 20. Three games where he took the majority of snaps he threw for 10 or less passes. If this doesn't indicate Miles trying to open up the passing game I don't know what will. Mett has thrown the ball more this year than McCarron has. It's going to take time to shift our offense to be more balanced. Especially when you're dealing with a kid who took his first road start last night. Growing pains are going to be there. The passing game is not even close to our biggest issue. Our two biggest issues are holding on to the ball in the redzone and OLine. Fix that and Mett will continue to improve. He's already shown he has the moxxy to be a good QB. Kid isn't afraid to take a hit. He's going to be good, it's just gonna take time.
any real LSU fan could not be happy, much less satisfied, with what we saw last night. that said, let's take a look at the facts. First, we won so it could definitely be worse. Second, the offensive line couldn't keep Mettenberger upright for more than a second so it effectively deleted a portion of our playbook. If you are Studrawa or Miles why would you keep calling deep drop, slow developing pass plays when your offensive line looks more like pudding. Third, Mettenberger wasn't exactly doing a great job of holding onto the ball when he did get hit. Fourth, our game plan started getting dictated by the pace of the game that Auburn wanted to play. If Mett and Porter do not fumble the ball inside the five and we punch it in, the score is 14-0, our team is up two touchdowns quickly on the road in the SEC and confidence is high. Who knows where the game goes from there because football is such a game of momentum. Especially when you consider that all of these things allowed the home fans to stay in the game and for the Auburn team to continue feeding off that energy. Miles realized early on that his team was rattled and he also realized that his defense was good enough to win the game if he could ever get ahead. Our third quarter field goal provided that. All told, we survived a near perfect storm. We have one more week to tweak things, especially the O-line, before we jump back into the pressure cooker that is the SEC. I don't know what the answer will be but we have to find someone who can play left fucking tackle. the Chris Faulk injury is proving to be tough to overcome but surely there is someone on that team who can play the position and our coaches have to find that person. All in all I am a Tiger fan through and through and like my old football coach used to say, "she's fat and ugly, but she's a woman." It's a win, and I'll take it. BUT! We are not the playing like the #2 team in the land and if we do not improve this will not be the season that we all expected.
How do you stretch the field when the QB gets laid out every time they do a deep pass? Look at that first drive again last night. Multiple times Mett threw passing plays in a run formation while everyone was run blocking. That is a play I haven't seen very often/ever from Miles. Also what about at the end of the game when they faked the screen pass, got the DBs to bite, and had a WR crossing to the inside that Mett threw to. Again something that they don't do very often/ever. There are multiple different looks on offense this year as opposed to the last 4. The biggest issue is when your line can't hold to let plays develop you have to do quick passes and there's only so many quick passes in the playbook.
It's called hype. That's it. Expectations fueled by a new quarterback and supported by a ton of points over 3 out matched opponents to start the season. Fans get carried away and forget to check reality. This team has a lot of youth on the field, they are missing some key players and they are making adjustments. I also think a lot of people got a little distracted by Auburn's performance over their first few games of the season. Their defense played with a chip on their shoulder last night and turned in one of their best showings. It was a night home game against a big time rival in front of a hungry home crowd. I told everyone before the game to forget the ridiculous spread and remember that this is LSU - Auburn. They may be struggling but they still have a lot of talent. LSU got a great gift last night. The opportunities for improvement were clearly identified and now they get a week to work on what they saw, put the changes into a trial run against Towson, then put some more tweaks in as they prepare for Florida the following week. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want right? Well the Tigers gained valuable experience last night and they still got what they wanted, a "W". It was a raucous crowd, it was high intensity, it was a battle. Maybe we didn't expect it to be such a close battle and maybe it shouldn't have been. We did win on the road against a big time rival. Championship teams never stop learning and growing. If this is one of those teams, and I believe it is, they will get it done.
Izzy don't you know what conference this is? And how many games has the punishing run won for us lately? Dude they lost one game against a juggernaut over the last two years. The system is working, and getting better.
Yeah seriously. This is the SEC! A road win is a precious gift that should be treasured even if the opponent is vandy.shit happens in football. You put a road sec win in your pocket and it's good news, keep on truckin.
I seemed to remember threads commenting to the quality of the oline coach in years past. I know there have been a couple of nicks to the line, but was there not discussion before the season that this may be the best line ever??? So where is the problem? As to Mettenberger, the Statue of Liberty can run faster and his anticipation of being hit and bending over, will be an every play "move" against Alabama. Anyone else notice all the left/right steps Ware takes when going through the line that the other backs don't seem to do??? If the line can't block, won't block, don't know how to block, why is there not a tight end getting 10 catches per game? Based on Auburn, the offense is WORSE than last year given the plays that were called.
