Today's scrimmage practice report (In-depth analysis)

The scrimmage wasn't anything crazy, but I'll try to capture everything I saw here.

Overall Offense:
-The new hurry-up offense looks like it'll be our new identity. They ran it really well and ran MANY plays in a short amount of time. The offense seemed to do pretty well against our vaunted defense. I'm sorry, Tiger Rant... but the short-side option and roll-out passes are still very much a part of this offense. And the option wasn't too effective at all... just a great defense? Hope so.

QBs:
-Mettenberger looked great, as he always does in the Spring. He led the Tiger offense down the field against the starting defense rather quickly. Nothing too flashy. (20-of-30 passes for 200 yards and 2 TDs)

-Rivers was next on the depth chart. He started out a little rough, misses a few short passes and only handing off, but eventually led a nice drive down the field against our second string D. He had one particular long pass that was right on the money to Avery Peterson.

-Jennings was the last QB in the rotation (Rettig and Bolden didn't get any meaningful snaps that I saw). He didn't perform as well as the other QBs in getting the ball down the field, but you can also blame this on the fact that he was working with our lower-tier offensive squad. While he struggled to throw down-field, he demonstrated several very athletic maneuvers to escape the defense. He kept the ball and ran for a first down a couple times. Excited to see how he'll progress as the practices/season goes on.

RBs
-Hill and Hilliard had a good scrimmage. No big gains, but they were going up against our defensive superstars. They also caught quite a few passes.

-Overall, RB play was hard to judge going against our great defense.

WRs
-Avery Peterson had one AWESOME catch thrown by Rivers. Almost lead to a touchdown. I think he gets some playing time and shines this season.
-Beckham is still the #1 guy, it looks like, with Landry on his heels. He caught some short-passes and had some good YAC.
-Landry - WOW! He played better than I've ever seen him. He looks bigger and more athletic. Really gave Beckham and run for his money. I think he'll be a star this season, too.
-Overall: I think we're set at WR.

TEs
-VERY good play by our TEs! I saw several great passes to several of our guys. They're being utilized more as WRs than extra linemen.

O-Line
-On-par performance. There were several instances, however, where they drew false start penalties.

Overall Defense:
-All three teams played great, made it too hard to dissect the offense because they were so suffocating.

D-Line
-D-Line play was great. They had a few sacks on our 2nd and 3rd string offense. One standout I noticed was Jordan Allen. He was rocking it and got several tackles and a sack or two. Could have been because he was in a no-contact jersey, though. As with the O-Line, there were a few offsides flags against the D-Line. These issues need to be corrected before the season starts.

LBs
-Didn't see too much action from the LBs today. At least no one in particular. They worked well in tandem with the D-Line to provide powerful run-stopping support.

S
-Safeties played a great game. Loston and Thompson made some great plays in the redzone. Loston almost had an interception on what would have otherwise been a touchdown thrown by Rivers. Our safeties also played great on Special Teams, but I'll get to that later.


I didn't get a chance to watch the CBs much, I apologize.

Overall Special Teams:
-Special teams played very athletic today. Had some good returns and blocks. Special Teams were only on display a select few times today, so it was hard to get much info on them, but here's what I gathered:

Punting
-Honestly, wasn't that great. At least not at first. Not having Wing is pretty noticeable right now. There were a few punts that flew INTO THE STANDS. Eventually, they figured it out and had a couple good kicks that flew out the end zone. I think they'll get them up to LSU standards by the time the season starts.

Return Man
-On PR and KR, we had Beckham and Eugene. Both of them looked great running back the football. They were cutting through defenders and looked very athletic. Eugene had a return for about 40 yards.

Blocking
-The return's successes definitely had to do with the great blocking. It was hard to make out numbers, since they were wearing mesh jerseys, but I don't think RECEIVING the ball will ever be an issue with the Tigers this coming season.


A few more miscellaneous items I noticed:
-Cam Cameron is in a very active role right now. He was yelling at the players for bone headed mistakes, and they definitely seem to respect him.
-The overall atmosphere of the practices is much more serious than last year. They seem fired up and more about-their-business than last year, where they were seen joking around a lot.
-There were a lot of huge recruits in the stadium for this scrimmage. Hope we get them.

I think it was a nice preview to what we could be seeing this coming football season.


I tried to include as much info as possible. If you have any more questions, ask here and I'll try to answer/be more specific.