re: Miles: QB situation not settled

I'm pretty new here but I've read a lot of the posts on this topic. The following is my opinion for which I'm entitled. I could be wrong as a football bat or I could be a right as rain. It's still my opinion so here goes:

2008 was a hard year the for the LSU QB situation. I felt bad for Lee as he began to be boo'd due to his performance but I don't think any freshmen QB thinks he couldn't start for the school he was going to. Last year Lee looked lost at times and he showed promise at times as most freshmen QB's do especially in the SEC. The problem is that he looked lost more than he showed promise. Lee's biggest challenge won't be regaining confidence in himself or shaking off 2008. Throwing 6 interceptions that were returned for TD's or missing wide open WR's or making bad decisions in 2008 won't hinder Lee in 2009. What will hinder him is the fact that his teammates completely lost confidence in him. That's going to be the biggest thing for him to overcome. It's natural that people cheer for the guy on the bench but as the season wore on, you could see the players around Lee just not having any confidence in him. I even suspect that Crowton lost some confidence in him. There's a reason that Lee had the comeback performance in the Auburn game. Hatch got hurt so the team rallied around Lee and he came through. The problem is that once he became the starter, he continued to make the same mistakes and didn't show much improvement. It was at that point that the team started losing confidence in him. Don't think for one minute that after 4 int's returned for TD's, the defense didn't approach games feeling like they were already down by a TD. There was very little communication between the WR's and Lee on the sidelines and sometimes it just appeared that they simply didn't want to talk to him.

Lee has ability otherwise he wouldn't be at LSU. Things like staring at WR's or throwing into coverage can be corrected. He can't correct lost confidence. Lee will need to regain the confidence in himself as well as the confidence of the players around him. I don't know if that can be regained especially when you have another QB that the team seemed to have tons of confidence in.

It's the right thing to do for Miles to give all the QB's a fair shake at the starting role but I think Miles has an idea of who will be the starter. JJ will enter the competition with the advantage of knowing that the team has confidence in him to lead them. Lee will enter the competition feeling like he has something to prove not only to himself but to his teammates. Time will tell but my money will be on JJ being the starter. Winning back lost team confidence is such a huge uphill battle to fight.