The conundrum with the play calling and the confidence in JJ

On the first series we took that shot in the endzone with the fade pattern to Toliver. A most excellent call. And it would have worked had JJ waited another second to release the ball. But I suspect his eyes got pretty big when he saw one on one coverage, just as the coaching staff had hoped for. Of course the pass was overthrown, although it was thrown to the exact spot where it needed to be thrown.

From that play forward, the play calling seemed to go back into that shell we've seen all last year and JJ's play reverted to being timid and non-decisive, much like last season and what we have seen so far this year.

So the problem we face is we need to instill confidence in JJ and open up the playbook. The problem is his inconsistent and often times poor play doesn't give the coaching staff the confidence to do just that. So it's catch-22.

I have no clue as to where we go from here. But we certainly can't keep the status quo regarding our play calling and subsequent QB play.

 

He's a junior with three years in the system. If he's not self-confident and able to run the playbook by now . . . do you really expect a miracle to happen.

 

I think JJ's confidence in himself is a reflection of how much confidence the coaches show in him. And this goes all the way back to last season. Granted, its all based on what we seem from the stands/TV as to how the play calling is developing. But when the attack seems overly run and very simple pass-oriented, JJ looks inconsistent and timid. When the play calling is more balanced and designed to attack the whole field, he throws with much more confidence. Not perfect; he still misses some throws. Too many, some will argue. But I'm convinced that if the coaches commit to an aggressive game plan, JJ will operate it well.

 

Red, I'm curious. I'm not going back to dig up last week's threads, but it seems like you're more down on JJ now then you were after the Vandy game? What gives?

 

It's about the same, actually.

I think Jefferson is a fine young man, but he has plateaued in his capabilities. He's not improving and I believe he's the bottleneck in our offensive production and is likely to remain so. If he was all we had, I'd get behind him and say that we just have to go with what we have. But we have another quarterback that is also a fine young man, who could have left for greener pastures, putting LSU into a serious bind. I think he deserves an opportunity to show what he can do when Jefferson is playing poorly. If he can't do any better, we're no worse off.

But giving him no meaningful opportunities and being determined to stick with Jefferson, rain or shine, makes no sense to me at all. Why in the world do you develop depth at quarterback if you're not going to use it? What incentive does Jefferson have to perform better if he knows he'll never be benched for poor play?

Rivals do not respect our #91 total offense or our #115 out of 120 passing offense (Down from last year's #112). We are one-dimensional with Jefferson at quarterback and one-dimensional teams can be shut down by upper-tier SEC teams, as we saw last year.

The book on LSU is still to put 8 men in the box, stuff the run and dare Jefferson to pass.

 

I once firmly believed that to be the case.

Not so much anymore. I just think this kid's mental state had been damaged to the point where we may never be able to get him to be the QB he needs to be for us to succeed at a high level in this offense.

 

Most likely.

He is not losing any games for us (speaking of this season only). But in crunch time, is he going to be able to wins games for us? That remains to be seen. It will probably be tested this coming Saturday night.