That’s right, push that panic button with all due haste. Shades of the worst of Curley Hallman and the death knell game of Gerry DiNardo come to mind when thinking of this past weekend. Let’s break it down. Not that it makes me feel any better to actually dig into that ugly game, but there were some positives.
The defense played well. They gave up only 13 points and 6 of those came off LSU turnovers. Given the offense turned it over SIX times, the defense was stout. UAB only gained 187 yards in total offense.
I thought the pass protection was decent for the most part. Booty was only sacked once.
However, the negatives heavily outweighed the positives.
Josh Booty continues to struggle. I really don’t see much improvement in his game from last year. Disregarding the first game against W. Carolina, his numbers are 40-88 (45%), 574 yards (191 yards/game), 4 TD’s and 7 Int.’s. He’s on pace to throw 21 Int’s this season. Nothing is more frustrating than watching true freshmen like Jeff Smoker at Michigan State or Philip Rivers at North Carolina State make game winning plays while watching Josh Booty throw the game away. Yes some guys dropped balls, but when crunch time comes, Booty is woefully incompetent. The problem is there is evidently no one else to run this offense. Get ready Tiger fans; you will probably be forced to sit through another long and painful season.
The receivers couldn’t catch a cold. I lost track of the number of dropped passes. When Booty was actually throwing to the correct team, LSU’s receivers couldn’t hang on.
Still can’t run block very well.
John Corbello can’t hit anything beyond 35 yards. He is struggling this year hitting only 3 of 7 FG’s.
I can’t believe some of the garbage I hear on talk radio. Jimmy Ott insists that Josh Booty is an NFL quarterback. Right. Unless this guy makes some miraculous transformation, he’ll be lucky to start next year. The guy is a bad football player. No other way around it. He can’t read a defense and it seems that he may be tough to coach. I don’t consider ad-libbing to a play only he knows good decision making. Just run the play genius. Don’t think, that’s when you get in trouble.
Where does LSU go from here? Hell if I know, I count beans and sue people for a living. But I think Craig Nall may be moving up the depth chart. Not because of anything he has done, but with Booty’s poor performances, you’ve got to wonder how patient the staff is going to be with him. The WR’s coach must be a little red faced. His crew was pretty pitiful this past week. The best thing to look at this year is the development of individual players who may be able to help LSU next year. It’s obvious the woes of last year were not all caused by poor coaching. This is a very talented staff working with very average talent. Jimbo Fisher is an up and coming coach who has tutored some fine quarterbacks. This loss is very disappointing, but everyone needs to be patient.
Nick Saban will start earning that paycheck in the off season when he starts getting some studs to sign with LSU. (It’s already begun by the way.) I’m buying into the philosophy of building a program, not a team. Look at the fine Michigan State team he left, plenty of blue chip players who know how to win. That’s where LSU will be. Just be patient.
No comments:
Post a Comment