Overall, probably a B- effort against a team who gave an A+ effort. The offense doesn't concern me, because when they opened the playbook, they moved the ball with ease. The playcalling was intentionally watered down and it showed at times. The defense doesn't concern me, because when they got out of the soft zone in the 2nd half, they really controlled the UW offense minus the last-second drive with the game in hand. All of the problems the defense had -- tackling, poor 1st half scheme, etc... can and were corrected and can be refined further in practices. There was just 1 turnover. Was only 3 penalties and was no major miscommunication blowups on defense like we saw on last year, so I honestly think the defense will play good ball and in a lot of ways got a bad shake of things tonight, which brings me to my #1 concern: PUNTING. Derek Helton was not bad -- because bad would be too nice. If that kid can't get more than a 30-35 yard punt this season, the LSU defense will look worse than it really is all season, because the opponent will always start from around midfield. This kid needs to turn over field position or LSU will play from the hole in the field position game all season and that's a major concern of mine.
Were you watching the same game that I saw? LSU never controlled UW's offense. Locker is a really good QB and he is going to complete his share of passes but what I am most concerned about is that is that whenever he avoided the pass rush and rolled out there was no outside containment and he was free to run for a first down. This has got to be changed.
Clair is right about his concern on punting, I thought the same thing, and would not have mentioned it except that Clair brought it up. It has to improve, or it will cost us down the road.
Chavis defenses at Tennessee always seemed to focus on stopping the run first and didn't get serious about pass defense until they had to. I think were going to have to play more man coverage, especially since we have the athletes to do it. Les needs to find a punter and fast. The offense was creaky, but I didn't see any major obstacles to success. Jefferson is going to have to complete more passes in SEC competition.
Punting made my top 5 questions as well. But I disagree that the defense will be OK. No pass rush is huge trouble brewing. It can be fixed with personnel and scheme, but will it? It wasn't last year. Back to punting - Helton appeared to be pooch punting. My impression was he never took a full kick at the ball. Wierd.
LOL! I hope you're right. If that was his full kick, its gonna be a long season as we shorten the field for the opposing offense.
Punting is definitely an issue. That was outright embarrassing. To say the defense is going to be fine is way premature. I didn't see nearly enough to come to that conclusion. If what is probably a mediocre Vandy offense comes in and puts up 24-28 points, we could be in for a long season. We have to get back to making teams wish they never stepped out onto that field against our Tigers. At this point, all Washington wished is that they didn't hand the Tigers the football game last night.
