The conundrum with the play calling and the confidence in JJ

IMO the problem is twofold. Ive backed JJ a lot but his play is just poor. A lot is on him that he doesnt have better poise or grasp of the O. I thought he did look better this week though. JJ just cant seem to put the ball on the money. Add to that he freezes. Im not sure how much potential there really is to improve.

The coaching and play calling does not at all help the situation. I dont care if your QB is playing poorly to your standards. You still have to attempt to go down field. I think more faith in JJ would result in better play. Im not saying JJ would be a totally different QB. Im just saying how can he feel confident when his coaches dont feel confident in him? When all you do is throw in the flat or short curls the D doesnt have to play honest. There is no threat for LSU to go deep. So they load the box which in turn kills the run game. While LSU might have decent running stats its misleading. Most runs are for either nothing or a big run. We need consistency.

As mentioned if the coaches dont have faith in JJ then put in Lee. Instead they are going to ride him to the ground like with Lee.

 

I had 2-3 losses...I'm leaning towards the 2 now. But going from 5 to 3 in only 3 games tells me one of two things...

1) You expected one of the five to be UNC...fair enough.
or
2) You see something positive you weren't expecting. The defense I presume.

Either way, both are fair points.

 

Our D, should it continue to play at the level it is and continue to improve, will keep us in several games. We may even win a game or 2 that may look like we are not in it, due to our D and special teams. That said, as long as the offense doesn't lose games for us I think a 10+ win season is very realistic. Having seen how our competition is playing there isn't one that I look at and think we are probably going to lose that one. Are there a couple that I think will be close and could go either way, yep. Bama, Ark, UF, and AU are all contenders to knock us off, but so are we to knock them off. An opinion I wasn't as confident in before the Vandy and Miss St games.

On a side note: Look at the Saints, a full preseason and 2 games in and it is our D that is keeping us in the games, with the O scoring just enough to bring home the W. Sound familiar, and this is from the reigning Super Bowl Champions. Brees is one of the best QB's in the NFL and thus far he and the Saints offensive attack have looked rather timid, at best only putting up 287 total yds, but they are finding ways to win. I would venture to say that most, if not all, Saints fans are ecstatic about the fact that our Saints are 2 - 0, and very few are complaining about how they got there.

 

That's a BIG word Izzy, I'm impressed.

 

This article is the smoking gun in all of this, and shows how Crowton has, IMO, ruined JJ mentally...

LSU's Crowton wants Jefferson to not worry about interceptions | thetowntalk.com | The Town Talk

 

I know JJ needs much better pocket awareness. I know JJ must shorten that release. Fact is though until the coaches call a better game JJ wont progress. How can he learn if you dont give him the room to grow? The kid is bound to be unsure of himself more than his already shakey mentality would dictate since the coaches playcalling handcuffs him. Unless Miles and Crowton are happy with being a .500 team in the SEC then the playcalling MUST open up. If not the D will be all over the predictable short passes and run plays.

Ultimately you have to play to win the game. In the recent past when teams have won with a QB who they deem as a, 'manage the game' QB we still see them going donw the field from time to time. We see them using the intermediate and deeper patterns sometimes to keep the D honest. We only see LSU throw in the flat or short. When a QB completes for under a 10 yard avg on a consistent basis in college then something is going wrong. I understand you take what the D is giving you but we arent. Because the D is giving some intermeditate and deep passes because they know LSU wont throw it. This article IMO proves its far more on the coaches than JJ.

 

If Les is smart he'll cut his losses with Crowton at season's end. Philosophical differences aside it seems obvious to me that he is incapable of developing QBs. To believe otherwise is to believe that LSU whiffed on 2 talented QB recruits and both don't have what it takes to run an offense with this many weapons at their disposal. One I can believe, 2 is not a coincidence. Coupled with his previous pattern of diastrous year-to-year offensive progression, either Gary Crowton is the most snake-bitten, unlucky OC in college football, or he is just incompetent. I'm going with the simpler, and more likely, possibility.

Les needs to look the future, if for no other reason than his own financial future. If we get the Mettenbeger kid and Rivers, we'll have two promising young players. I'm usually not a fan of switching OCs and systems on senior players like Jefferson will be, but this is a major exception, and it's time to make a fresh start and clean break from Crowton.

 

They have definitely been handling him with kid gloves ever since his freshman year.

Is he that mentally fragile?

 

I disagree that we don't throw it down field as much as other teams. It just seems that way to us because we feel that is a weakness of JJ. Looking at the stats from last season, on average we tended to throw it as deep as anyone else in the SEC. Our average per attempt was larger against real opponents that you would expect.

LSU Wash
Average Per Attempt 9.1 7.1
Average Per Completion 15.6 12.8

LSU Vandy
Average Per Attempt 4.9 3.7
Average Per Completion 7.0 8.0

LSU MSU
Average Per Attempt 8.3 5.6
Average Per Completion 15.5 13.1

LSU UGA
Average Per Attempt 7.9 6.7
Average Per Completion 11.8 12.7

LSU UF
Average Per Attempt 5.6 8.4
Average Per Completion 8.7 12.2

LSU AU
Average Per Attempt 7.5 4.1
Average Per Completion 11.5 7.4

LSU Bummer
Average Per Attempt 5.9 8.1
Average Per Completion 11.3 14.5

LSU OM
Average Per Attempt 6.8 10.6
Average Per Completion 13.2 15.5

LSU ARKY
Average Per Attempt 7.2 5.8
Average Per Completion 10.5 13.4


I think that LSU fans just have it stuck in their head that we don't throw it down field much but we actually do. It just isn't our first choice. Miles is a run first guy because we have the talent up front. Other teams seem to try to pass first because they don't have the big guys up front and the RBs that LSU has. It is almost like they have to throw it and we have the luxury of having a running game that we can establish. The running game may not be gaudy, but the other team HAS to respect it and defend it. When Shepard does that end around for more than 10 yards in the first half, the D has to step it up. In the MSU game, we ran it a lot at first and then opened it up a good bit and ended up scoring the first TD with a good bit of passing (5 straight passes before JJ ran it in).

I think that we adjust our pass to run ratio based on the competition exactly as we should. We don't take chances with teams like MSU because we SHOULDN'T. They aren't a pushover and if we throw a couple of INTs in that game or kill a few early drives with bad passes or drops, we can lose! Forget that! Control the game and beat the opponent, then worry about next week when it gets here. I like this team and I think that we may be on the track to a great season (2 or fewer loses).