re: How good is JL? How good can he be?

quote:

---

This is what my novel of a post earlier was about... I just bumped it.. I think JL could have been amazing by now if we had taken our lumps with him through 08 and into 09. He has talent and always had. Our fans are just so rabid they destroyed him. I took a lot of criticism for telling people in 08 to chill out and give him time. He is still our best QB.

---

We did take out lumps with him in 08. He was the starter for almost the whole season. He got injured in the 2nd to last regular season game. He started 8 games and played significantly in three others. If not for the injury, he may have possibly finished the season out, though they were starting to put JJ in a little. Then JJ came in and played better and that was that. That was a tough situation for both QBs. And JL started with a lot of promise, he just seemed to lose much of his accuracy as the season went on and things snowballed. And of course, the fans wanted a different QB. So it was just tough.

Last year he didn't get much time other than the La Tech game and that didn't go well. I think the coaches might have been hesitant to try him last year because JJ was the type of player that managed things well last year (other than the time at the end of the Ole Miss game) without much of a running game.

This year, JJ's accuracy plummeted after the first game and he started turning the ball over. It was obvious that they had to see what else might work. JL played excellent on Saturday. You can see that we run a totally different style of passing offense when he's in there and I thought the coaches did an excellent job of playing to his strengths. Lee has the ability to excel with quick slants and screens with his quick release. We don't need bombs with guys like TT, RR and RS. Yes, we can do them, but our guys have the talent to make shorter passes into huge gains.

The coaches also did a great job with having us line up in a set and then 3-4 guys would all move into a different formation about five seconds before we snapped it. It made it harder for the D to guess what was coming and we were able to hit those quick routes. JL has had some of his best drives ever with fast decisions. The less he has to think...the better. Hopefully, the coaches can keep up ways to play to that and disguise what we're doing.

In that way, I think he could be very effective. We'll just have to see how teams adjust to what we're doing. So far JL has made our offense much more dangerous. We can really use our skilled guys with him in there. But we will probably need both of our QBs in some capacity as we head down the stretch. Every QB has some off games and some people are forgetting that already. But right now, JL is giving us a real passing threat. With that, our D and our running game - it's a combo that's tough to beat.

me too

When JL got hurt in 2008 and was replaced by JJ, this was certainly needed as JL , although in a bad position over his head thru no fault of his own, was losing us games due to his poor performance. There was no way that CLM and staff could keep him in there. That was a good coaching move. At that point, JL was mentally shot. JJ came in and finished off the season as best we could with average or better performance.

Where we missed the boat with JL, in my opinion, was not playing him enough in 2009 when we had the chance to see if he had overcome his mental issues and INT issues. I know he played poorly against Tech, but we had plenty of opportunity to give him meaningful time before we actually needed him and we did not. This to me was a coaching mistake.

And we almost did the same in 2010 until it became obvious that we had no other choice with JJ playing so poorly. I certainly wish that JL had some meaningful playing time against Vandy, MSU, WVU, even NC and feel he would be much further along today as a result.

The good thing is that he came in before it was too late in 2010 and basically saved the day in the last 2 games. I just wish he had the opportunity to play a little more in 2009 and earlier this season to help his progression.

Anyway, we are 6-0 and JL is now getting some good PT so we now do have a legitimate chance at the SEC title and maybe, just maybe, a NC.

Jarrett is playing great. He's throwing at a 75% completion rate. I'd like to see how much more zip his passes would have if he began stepping into his throws with more confidence. Right now, he's throwing flat-footed or off his back foot, like he's still maybe a little tentative. But hey, I'm not complaining. I like the results so far.