Lost in all of this is the disservice Miles did, not only to JL by not giving him a single play to TRY and provide a spark, but also to JJ. By being stubborn and prideful, he left JJ in a game when he was struggling BADLY. He left him to the wolves so-to-speak. Left him in a ball game where his head CLEARLY was NOT in it. Left him in a ball game where even his runs were timid. Left him in a ball game where the longer he stayed, the worse he played and the more angry the fanbase became with him. By leaving JJ in for the 2nd straight game of struggles, the last impression EVERYONE (LSU fans as well as EVERYONE who watched that game) is that JJ is inept, slow, and compiled probably the WORST championship games (SEC and BCS) a college QB has EVER had. And while it's certainly baffling and NOT fair to Lee to never get in those games (I'm NOT counting the pathetic single play to take a knee either), he was equally unfair to JJ for subjecting him to his continued woeful play in both of those games.
This is very true. The irony of the situation is that Les Miles has an unexplainably high opinion of JJ, yet he is the one who "left him to the wolves" as you put it.
Yep .... I really felt sorry for JJ out there. BUT .. at the same time, I'm not sure that a personality like JJ wanted to be pulled. As I said, JJ comes across as a narcissists ..... and such people think if they can't do it, no one can. As was clearly demonstrated by other post game comments ... JJ thought he made great decisions .. played a great game ... it was the rest of the teams fault that we got stomped. It was Ware's fault that he didn't catch that ball that was thrown to him while his back was turned. It was all the line's fault. JJ himself proved he did not have a finger on the pulse of the game. I remember the MState Game when JLee threw the long TD pass to RR. The coaches said pp .. that play was called by Lee .... Lee said pp .. the play was there so I called it. This proves that the QB has the power to alter the play at the line of scrimmage. JJ should have realized that the short passes were working, and he should have audibled more plays to those short pass plays. So .. while I feel for his embarrasment .. sometimes, people deserve what they get. Wonder how many "all star" bowls JJ has been invited to??? I know JLee was invited and will play in the one out West. I think that tells you a lot of what the world thinks about the two.
I wonder if anyone has a done a comparison of this offense statistically this season when - Lee was QB without Jefferson (maybe first 5 or 6 games), when Lee was QB with JJ, and when JJ was starting. Lee was impressive to me at the start of the season. I was feeling good about our offense at that time. I feel like Lee's quality of play began deteriorating the more that JJ was in the picture. I guess he knew it was a matter of time before JJ would be starting. And Miles never really gave Lee a chance after AL. I cant think of a worse way to destroy a QB's confidence than to bench him after a mistake, like an interception. Granted, Lee had the "deer in the headlights" look. But so did JJ in the BCSNCG. He never let JL "get back on the horse" after that game. Miles got away from what had been working for the past two seasons. How many games during these last two seasons did JJ start only to have the offense stall, and then Lee comes in and provides a spark or a drive to get the team moving. Think about FL or TN last year. The last few games this year - especially ARK and GA - the special teams provided the spark to get the team going. Saban made sure that wouldn't happen in the NC. I think our offense should have gone to quick short passing routes to receivers and TE's, similar to what Bama did against us. I think JL could have contributed in that roll. But Miles had not used him much at the end of the season, and I bet he felt like Lee couldn't handle it. He was "all in" with JJ and it cost us big time.
I have stayed out of the fray since the game, but since this is "one last JJ & JL thread", I will pipe in. JJ stunk in this game. He didn't do well against Arky or UGA, but he was completly in-effective in this game. But he is a Tiger. A Tiger that led us to many great victories and I think that he handled himself very well during the false accusations that almost ruined his senior year. I would have gone bananas and packed it in. It was a tough season for him but I hope that he can look back at this entire season and be proud of the job he did. That last game will leave one hell of a bitter taste in his mouth, but it was not all on his shoulders and he will come to realize that in time. The o-line could not stop a four man rush and the WRs couldn't hold a block long enough for the screens to be effective. JJ was just one of many in-effective LSU offensive players in that game (and yes, Bama's D had a LOT to do with it). JL stuck with LSU when many would have transferred. He loved LSU. He had a fantastic 2/3's of a season but did not exactly end on a high note. No clue why he could not pass that class that he apparently dropped and re-took during the winter intersession. Maybe he skipped classes like the rumors suggested, maybe it was a tough class. I assume that he probably missed a lot of practice leading up to the BCS game (since intersession classes are like 3 hours a day, 5 days a week plus the study time). Looks like it really pissed off Miles to have that happen. And we ended up losing out on Patrick Miller because of it. So, great start to the season and then self destruction in the class room that probably led to his benching for the end of the season. He was a great Tiger and will go down in history as being a key member of a great team. As far as how Les handled these guys, I will make no apologies for giving Les a pass on this one. I know that most on here are convinced that Lee got hosed, but I strongly disagree. Les knows ALL of the details and we know very few. Lee had his chances. JJ had his chances. I suspect that they were pretty much equal coming out of the Bama game. But Lee opened up a crack by struggling in the class room and JJ finally took advantage of that opportunity. And I think he separated himself at the end of the season and was clearly in command of the team going into the Bowl game. With Lee spending a lot of time in the class room during the intersession and pissing off Miles, I am not surprised that Les stuck with JJ. And if JJ would have just run the danged ball instead of pitching it to the other team, we would still have been in the game. Drive and score a TD and it would have been a game again. So I think that many here with the "sky is falling" crap are just full of it. Bama came to play, our entire offense did not. We lost. It happens. Stop the rumors and the finger pointing and the grandiose Miles bashing. Grow up. Back to the QBs. Both are great Tigers but apparently both were mediocre QBs. Both QBs that did not make the most of the chances given to them. They just didn't have the talent to do so. They were both giving their all. What more could you ask for?
1) So which is it .... JJ got progressively worse .. or JJ clearly separated himself?? I think your former assessment was correct ... JJ played like crap in the AR and GA game and completely fell apart in the NC. He has the "athleticism" .. but he does not have what it takes mentally to be a QB. 2) IF .. they came out equal after the Bama Game .. how come JL didn't get at least equal treatment as JJ. JJ started rotating in imediately upon return .... progressively taking on more and more plays. Lee .. after two ints .. went straight to the bench. When you take the "story" as a whole, it's obvious that CLM was working to restore JJ to the starting role from the minute he returned. The two ints in the Bama Game were just the convenient excuse. I mean ... there is no way that 1 week could have made that much of a difference on the grades issue. 3) Chances?? Lee's chance was due to a twist of fate. If not for Shady's, we would have had to endure another year like last year. JJ, on the otherhand, .. yes ..he got chances ... and chances and chances .. no matter what was happening on the field. And, as I said, I find it hard to believe that one week made that much of difference on the grades issue. 4) JJ couldn't run the ball. Here is where CLM was flat out outcoached. In the first Game ... Saban realized that he could not effectively run on LSU .. CLM did not realize that LSU could not run the ball on Bama. Saban changed direction ... CLM did not. Even with JJ in, as I've pointed out, the short pass was working, but CLM refused to stay with what was working because he was bent on running it. 5) I'll have to disagree about giving all they had. CLM sat on JLee the entire season. Post after post in the beginning .. "when is CLM going to open up the playbook??" Lee's strenghts were never exploited. His quick release is made for a short pass game, for which LSU did very little. I just hope that Mett doesn't die the same slow death that Lee has endured. I don't even think JJ had the opportunity to show his true talent. The reason, CLM developed his playbook around JJ's running ability, which is not stellar. This limited approach hurt both JJ and JLee. I'm just glad the saga is over. Hopefully next year, we'll see an offense committed to winning. An offense willing to open up and exploit all avenues.
No argument with ocean's analysis. Neither QB were utilized well and neither developed to be what we really needed. The point of my thread is that both did their best with what they had and we should remember that and thank them for being Tigers.
1. They came out equal against Bama the first time. Then Lee got in trouble with grades. Then JJ separated himself in the WK and Ole Miss and even to some extent the Arky game (it was 41-17). Then he showed weakness in the UGA game again similar to the Arky game, but still won convincingly. Then fell apart in the Bama game. You don't need to try to change reality to try to fit reality to your JL homer view. And I made it abundently clear that both QBs were mediocre QBs. Neither were all that mentally capable to quite get over the hump to becoming great QBs. 2. If you drop a class on the last day to drop (Nov 4th, the day before the Bama game) and coach finds out after that that you have been cutting classes (as the rumor goes), then yes grades can have a HUGE impact in whether you get to play against WK after choking hugely in the Bama game. And after the performance of JJ in the WK and OM games, it is hard to get your job back. That is football. Get over it. No conspiracy. No favoritism. None of that garbage you are spewing. 3. I never said how JL got chances. Just that he did. If JJ would have been eligible at the beginning of the season, then JL would not have had those chances again. And that is because, whether you like it or not, JJ gave us a better chance to win. Always had. You may disagree with that statement and make up some fantasy favoritism soap opera to try to twist a story to fit your view, but the simplest explaination is usually the correct one. JJ was better for LSU and coach Miles is a better coach than you are. 4. In the first game we ran for 148 yards of which JJ had 46. We could run on them. But the only reason we could run on them was because we had a balanced attack the first time. The second time, every time we dropped back to pass, 4 rushers blew up our O-line. Sorry, you just don't keep dropping back to pass when you keep getting sacked. That makes no sense. Short passes are pretty tough when they are dropping back in coverage with 4 rushers. Sure at the beginning we had a plan to spread them out sideline to sideline with screen passes and we found out that our WRs could not block their CBs long enough. It was a strategy that could have worked but it didn't. 5. The problem with Lee was that his supposed strength also played right into his weakness so that his strength was cancelled out. Sure he had a quick release and it seemed that a short passing game would be his strength. We tried that 3 years ago. There is a reason we have not tried that again. The ball ended up going to the wrong place. He just is not accurate enough and I surmise that Miles saw that in practice and in order to protect his QB, he did not try to put him into bad situations. Also, another reason Miles developed his playbook around JJ was because of number 3 above. You don't base your team around the worse QB. And yes, JJ's running ability was very impressive, you are just wearing JL colored glasses and are depressed about the beating we took last week. I am also glad this saga is over and look forward to a less mediocre QB that has me pulling my hair out every play. I hope that we have a QB that is good enough that we can open it up and let the offense dominate. Open it up this past year and we are at the very best best 12-1 with no SECC and a loss in the first Bama game instead of 13-1.
