1. I know Tyler Russell "isn't ready", but he's also the best we have, and I think probably our best chance of winning. I may change my mind tommorrow once I look up Georgia and how they do stopping the run vs. the pass. I feel sorry for Chris Relf in that it's not his fault that he played for some ghetto inner city school in Montgomery and then had McCorvey for a couple of years, and is now a junior with basically two years of coaching. That said, it is what it is, and we have to put the best player on the field, or who gives us the best chance of winning. And yes, I know Tyler threw three picks- one of which was a Death Valley special WTF did the DE really make that play? that always seems to happen against MSU in Baton Rouge. Chris Relf, regardless of my pity, does not have that magical "It" that people talk about with QB's. Tyler Russell at least has some of "It", I just think he needs to develop "It" a little more, and I think he will be fine.
2. The o-line is my biggest disappointment for me. Perhaps their "success" last year was plastic in that AD could do some of their work himself and make them look better. I don't think that they are poorly coached, although I am no o-line expert. I do think that they aren't tough enough. Which is a major indictment against them. And perhaps they lack talent to. They certainly got whipped today, and that is the most upsetting thing to me about the game. A couple of the INT's were because our QB's had a LSU defender in their face. Every week I read about how the o-line "is not happy with their performance and will do better next week". Well, it's put up time now boys. GET YOUR *** OUT THERE AND BLOW SOME PEOPLE UP. Stop saying you'll do it, and do it.
3. I didn't see very many drops today by the WR's that I can remember. That's encouraging. Perkins showed some promise. I do agree with rugb that Bumphis needs to step his game up. He needs to be "the guy". I saw Chad in high school. He has the ability to be special. But, he has to decide to take his game to the next level. And I don't know if he's thinking too much or trying to hard or what.
4. I thought the defense did OK. We held them to a lot of field goals, obviously. LSU had one long TD drive. That's an acceptable performance. Not great, not bad, but acceptable. For the second week in a row, they were hurt by a QB that can run and make plays with his legs. That sucks because we're back there and we can't get the guy down on the ground, and then LSU would keep the drive going and get a FG. I'm optomistic that with Georgia having less of a scrambling threat that the defense will be even better. I'd also like to see us create more turnovers. I have a hard time criticizing a defense about that, because I know that there is a degree of luck involved. Could we do better with our tackling? Sure. But again, it was an acceptable performance overall.
5. Special teams sucked again. Except for Heath Hutchins. Brauchle sucks as a kick off guy, and I can only assume that DePasqulae is worse? I think we need to start looking at other options there as far as the kick off guy- whether it be DePasquale or Heath Hutchins- because Brauchle ain't getting it done.
6. The play-calling- The biggest one that I thought was questionable was Relf throwing his pick on a third and one where we were running the ball with some success. There was a third and six where we were backed up in the end zone and we tried to run it out, and I didn't like that because I felt like we were giving up. But here's the thing about the play-calling- we're not always going to agree with every single play call that ANY coach we have is going to call. Personally, overall, I didn't think the play-calling was that bad or questionable. I think execution at times was. That's not to say that Dan called a perfect game, but it was definately better than against Auburn. I do think that Dan gets too cute at times and takes risks when he shouldn't against opponents that he shouldn't. You want to run a jump pass against Memphis? Go for it! Against Auburn? No. We were really in a quandry against LSU because LSU had the 10th best pass defense in the SEC, BUT we had Relf who has no clue where the heck the ball is going and a RS freshman in Tyler Russell and they have Patrick Peterson back there despite their low ratings, and on the other hand they had the second best run defense in the SEC going into the game, and a struggling o-line. Once again, it was a bad match-up against LSU. If we can't run the ball, we're going to struggle on offense because of our scattershot QB's.
7. The trip was worth it because of the stop at the gas station in the land that time forgot near Hammond (where else?) where you could buy hard boiled eggs, throwing stars, and a butterfly knife. This lovely establishment also featured prison style bathrooms and an appearance by a man that vhdawg has named "The Frito Bandito" or as I named him "The Mexican Richard Petty". So, I had a good time.
2. The o-line is my biggest disappointment for me. Perhaps their "success" last year was plastic in that AD could do some of their work himself and make them look better. I don't think that they are poorly coached, although I am no o-line expert. I do think that they aren't tough enough. Which is a major indictment against them. And perhaps they lack talent to. They certainly got whipped today, and that is the most upsetting thing to me about the game. A couple of the INT's were because our QB's had a LSU defender in their face. Every week I read about how the o-line "is not happy with their performance and will do better next week". Well, it's put up time now boys. GET YOUR *** OUT THERE AND BLOW SOME PEOPLE UP. Stop saying you'll do it, and do it.
3. I didn't see very many drops today by the WR's that I can remember. That's encouraging. Perkins showed some promise. I do agree with rugb that Bumphis needs to step his game up. He needs to be "the guy". I saw Chad in high school. He has the ability to be special. But, he has to decide to take his game to the next level. And I don't know if he's thinking too much or trying to hard or what.
4. I thought the defense did OK. We held them to a lot of field goals, obviously. LSU had one long TD drive. That's an acceptable performance. Not great, not bad, but acceptable. For the second week in a row, they were hurt by a QB that can run and make plays with his legs. That sucks because we're back there and we can't get the guy down on the ground, and then LSU would keep the drive going and get a FG. I'm optomistic that with Georgia having less of a scrambling threat that the defense will be even better. I'd also like to see us create more turnovers. I have a hard time criticizing a defense about that, because I know that there is a degree of luck involved. Could we do better with our tackling? Sure. But again, it was an acceptable performance overall.
5. Special teams sucked again. Except for Heath Hutchins. Brauchle sucks as a kick off guy, and I can only assume that DePasqulae is worse? I think we need to start looking at other options there as far as the kick off guy- whether it be DePasquale or Heath Hutchins- because Brauchle ain't getting it done.
6. The play-calling- The biggest one that I thought was questionable was Relf throwing his pick on a third and one where we were running the ball with some success. There was a third and six where we were backed up in the end zone and we tried to run it out, and I didn't like that because I felt like we were giving up. But here's the thing about the play-calling- we're not always going to agree with every single play call that ANY coach we have is going to call. Personally, overall, I didn't think the play-calling was that bad or questionable. I think execution at times was. That's not to say that Dan called a perfect game, but it was definately better than against Auburn. I do think that Dan gets too cute at times and takes risks when he shouldn't against opponents that he shouldn't. You want to run a jump pass against Memphis? Go for it! Against Auburn? No. We were really in a quandry against LSU because LSU had the 10th best pass defense in the SEC, BUT we had Relf who has no clue where the heck the ball is going and a RS freshman in Tyler Russell and they have Patrick Peterson back there despite their low ratings, and on the other hand they had the second best run defense in the SEC going into the game, and a struggling o-line. Once again, it was a bad match-up against LSU. If we can't run the ball, we're going to struggle on offense because of our scattershot QB's.
7. The trip was worth it because of the stop at the gas station in the land that time forgot near Hammond (where else?) where you could buy hard boiled eggs, throwing stars, and a butterfly knife. This lovely establishment also featured prison style bathrooms and an appearance by a man that vhdawg has named "The Frito Bandito" or as I named him "The Mexican Richard Petty". So, I had a good time.
