Because he isn't an offensive guru. Great motivator, yes, great recruiter, yes, awesome guy, yes, great representative of the university, yes, offensive genius, oh hells no. And I think my point was that when he backed off more his offenses were better, save the lone 2013 Mett season.
Excellent post!! Harris has shown improvement. Fact is LSU must show more in the passing game. Passing more consistently, both play call wise and player production. I think a part of the issue is the players are pressing too hard to impress when they do get a pass called. Most of the few passes are conservative and in the flat. When they do get to go down field Harris is scared to make the wrong read and throw the INT and the receivers want to make a big play. Miles must allow more of a passing attack or the better D's coming up(UF, Bama, and Ole Miss) will stack the box and keep Fournette to more avg gains.
You make good points, but its the conclusion you've jumped to that I take issue with. The EMU game is a great example....one of the post game radio commentators said LSU passed on first down 7 times in the first half alone. Isn't that what we've all been begging for; a little versatility, some variation from the traditional run-run-pass mentality? But.....they weren't making the plays. Harris missed some throws, WR's dropped others. What was Miles supposed to do....keep throwing just to fool the defense, or put the game in the hands of Mr. 8 yards per carry?
@TwistedTiger Indulge me for a moment in a few more stats. We all like to use 2013 as the benchmark of a great passing offense; Mett threw 326 passes that year for moe than 3200 yards. Let's go back to 2008. The year after Flynn's NC, but after the RP dismissal, we had absolutely 0 quarterbacks with any college experience, but we did have a stable of talented, experienced running backs.. We only threw the ball 201 times that year, which I think we can both agree is understandably low. But for the next 3 years, our passing attempts were: 2009-336, 2010-301, and 2011-279. In that final season, which was a mix of JJ and JL, we only threw on average 4 fewer attempts per game than in the AirMett season. Passing numbers fell way, way off last year, but we know why. Until last year, we did not appreciably change our approach to throwing, but the results were down. Teams are loading the boxes because we don't throw it well, not because Miles doesn't "understand passing."
You are correct, the EMU game is a great example of Miles not understanding the concept of a passing game. Constantly winging it down field with low percentage, high risk\reward passes instead of using short high percentage passes to get the QB into the flow. It's not as much the amount of passes it's the type of passes and when they pass. The first down passes were a huge improvement over waiting until 3rd and long. Still he has no feel for spreading the ball around and throwing short, intermediate and occasionally long instead of just one or the other. He has no clue how to help his QB gain confidence and have success. I agree that Miles SHOULD rely heavily on a great running game, but he should be able to scrape together something that resembles a passing game too. Please don't tell me that refusing to throw short falls completely on Harris either. The coaching staff should be calling passing plays early in game that are designed short quick easy passes to establish some confidence and chemistry. So far LSU seems to have two passing plays, the bubble screen and the bomb. Anything else happens so infrequently that it's hard to call it anything but a fluke.
coaches call plays... the pass plays called usually have multiple routes of different design on the route tree... it's up to the qb to determine which receiver to throw the ball to (hopefully the open one)... Harris has had open receivers on under routes and chose to throw to the incorrect receiver... you can't tell me that the coaches told him to throw to Dupre in the corner of the endzone when he had L-Train wide open right in front of him... he's still learning and he needs to learn not to predetermine which receiver to throw to before letting the play develop...
But that's EXACTLY IT!!!!!!! He NEEDS some short predetermined passes! Quick, short timing routes that are high percentage. Some 3 step drop and throw to a spot quick slants or the RB in the flat. Take the thinking out of it for him early in the game. Get him a few low pressure early completions to gain confidence and rythm. Get the passing game going to get the defense out of the box and make them cover everything. That's the type of things that coaches that understand passing do to get young inexperienced QBs going in the right direction. Miles doesn't help his young QB.
