Food for thought

first...if I have cussed anybody (directly) on this board you have my apology. we're all bent out of shape about how '08 has transpired and sometimes our judgement is overcome by emotion.

food for thought...the two biggest targets of wrath on the rant are Jarrett Lee and the two headed monster known to all as Malveto. it's obvious to all that JLee had a horrible year but a majority of posters think he has large upside and that with more experience he will, hopefully, become an asset to LSU. almost to a man/women, the posters here in rantland think coach Mallory and coach Peveto should be a) fired...b) demoted...c) neutered with a dull..well, you get my point. I did some selective number crunching to see how we really stacked up against like programs defensively and found some interesting points. I tried to keep it quite simple (so some of you could keep up..damn, there I go again) and mostly bottom line cause I don't have the time or the neccessary crystal ball to investigate the nuances of each teams season. This is a list of total points surrendered by eight top progams;

LSU..311 UGA..307 UFL..147 Ala..138 UTx..223 UOk..298 OSU..303 TxT..315

now here is where it gets interesting. if, for the sake of argument, you could subtract the 49pts LSU gave up on pick7's that would adjust LSU's point total to 262...certainly, not good or what we have grown to expect but keep in mind that 91 of those points came after the gut wrenching loss to Saban. Factor in the youth at lb and db and while not an excuse..it certainly might better explain the severity of the meltdown on the defensive side of the ball. I know many of you will say that it is the coaches responsibility to teach better schemes and discipline on d...but I ask how is it possible to devise and implement schemes against pick7's, 3 and outs and repetitivly bad field position? Some of the strongest teams in the nation, with the best minds on staff gave up an awful lots of points this year...and these teams all had lights out, ball control offenses led by 3,4,and 5yr qbs. On the nuance side, I looked at Bama's '08 schedule and does anybody really think Saban will ever have a more accomodating group of patsy's and underachievers again? Have at it.