re: Official Offensive Playcalling Thread

quote:

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This kid has started for more than a season now, his development is not happening. If we continue to "develop" him at this rate he might be a sec caliber qb in 20 years

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There is development, and then there is development.


Skills Development

Jefferson is developing in the sense that he is becoming a better QB. The UNC and the MSU game demonstrate that he is becoming a better QB. Sure, he made five mistakes in the UNC game, but it was the first game of the year, and he played well.

In the MSU game, Jefferson performed excellently the tasks he was called upon to perform. Was it perfect? No. It is not realistic to expect perfection. (Did Russell Shepard play perfectly? No, and his imperfections contributed to the negative discussions about Jefferson.) Jefferson ran well for a QB, and he threw well.


Confidence Development

Part of being a thrower, QB or pitcher, is believing that you can do it. There are few things worse for the performance of a QB, then pressing, and that comes from trying to do things that you don't feel confident doing.

When a thrower starts to over-think the act of throwing, the thrower tends to get unsatisfactory results: (1) aiming (bad), (2) guiding (bad), (3) releasing the ball late (low throws), (4) overcompensating, and (5) throwing it where no one can catch it (avoiding interceptions). Jefferson has tended to suffer from 3 and 4.

The biggest problem with pressing is that it leads to more pressing. It can be a downward spiral of failure and doom. Some QBs get flushed out because of the downward spiral of pressing and over-thinking.

When a QB believes he can make the throws, he performs much better because he avoids the results of pressing and over-thinking. When the QB is confident, it's just pitch and catch.

Thus, confidence is key, but more importantly, confidence can be fluid.

Some QBs can feel confident in one game and less confident in another. Some QBs have more trouble than other QBs in away games. Some QBs have more trouble than others in the rain. Some QBs have more trouble in windy conditions.

Last week, Jefferson played his worst game as a Tiger. Worst by a wide margin. It was fairly obvious to me that he was pressing. Jefferson threw an interception in the endzone to wipe out a possible scoring opportunity.

When LSU ran three plays up the middle, LSU was up 26 to 7 in the fourth quarter. The game was in hand. Jefferson had played a great game with zero turnovers. Why risk all of the good that accrued over 45 minutes of play for four points? Why take the risk when you might score by running it anyway?

I'm not saying that I agree with the play-calling. However, reasonable minds can disagree. I think the call to run the ball was reasonable. (I don't know the percentage difference between running and passing in the chance to score a touchdown from the 3; however, that percentage difference may not have been worth it when the game is in hand.