Why did Peterson play so poorly?

Floating grass surface

Once again, the field.

He was overconfident because he was guarding a white guy

SEC Speed + CapOne Turf = Big10 Speed

Why could PSU's receivers get wide open on Peterson, but nobody could get as wide open on anybody else?

He was playing terrible before that play.

If he was trying to play safe, he did a horrible job.

If he was trying to play aggressive, he did a horrible job.

Bottom line is this: Hawkins and Jones played alright; Peterson and Taylor played terribly.

Why the discrepancy? This "field conditions" excuse is bullshite. Taking all things into account, he played a much worse game than should have been reasonably expected. Anybody could have done better. He should have been benched at halftime to be honest.

So, all of a sudden, the CB who shut down AJ Green and Julio Jones needs to be benched? Everyone has a bad game. The field is a legitimate excuse...he's so good because he has the ability to react so quickly to receiver's routes. The field took that ability away from him. It's also very plausible to conclude that he was playing soft because he knew he couldn't cut on the field to play aggressive.

quote:

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I thought Peterson's performance has tailed off a lot since Bama.

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This is true, but understandable. In the Bama game, PP was locking down and having a GREAT game, and Bama just kept taking advantage of the other CB position. Hawkins and Eugene were getting abused all 1st half, and got so bad that eventually LSU had to put Taylor (who was used to playing safety this year) up on the line, which precipitated the big play by Jones.

After that game, I think PP started feeling (understandably) that he had to be everywhere to cover up for everyone else's mistakes. But as we all know, as soon as you start doing that, then other teams can key off it and burn you on your own responsibilities, which is what happened a little bit in the Ole Miss game.

There's no doubt in my mind that PP is the best player on the team, but that's exactly why I was so disgusted with the way he played against Penn State. I didn't see a lot of effort. I saw other players making adjustments to the conditions and playing a decent game, but I didn't see him doing it. It made me mad, and him celebrating (and then complaining) about that obvious interference call on the last drive made me even more mad.

Maybe his cleats were the wrong size or something, but from what I saw, it sure as hell looked like his head wasn't really in the game and that he just took a day off.

I hope I'm wrong.

Yeah, it looked like something was really wrong with him, like an undisclosed injury or something. I couldn't understand it.