A View From 1 1/2 Scouts * Long Read*

Some of the night crew on the Score Board after the game said I should put this on the Rant, so I figure I might as well:

I've worked for a former great football scout( now doing other work) for a number of years now and watch football games with him the past couple of years. I've learned a lot from him and we came up with a number of things watching tonight's game:

- Gonzales needs to become the full offensive coordinator. Crowton isn't the offensive genius people thought he was before coming here. With all the tools that LSU has, Gonzales could do amazing things with it.

- Chavis runs two defenses, and you would think he would learn. His redzone defense is phenomenal, but he fails to implement it into every down. The other 80 yards of the field, he uses a bend but don't break system, which allowed Claiborne to get burnt twice by double moves. When you play your cornerbacks 10+ yards off the LOS, teams are able to kill you short, and then catch you off-guard with the double moves for big games.

- The best way to cause an offense to fall apart? BLITZ the QB. Chavis did a good job of this in the 1st half, yet like everything else, pulled off until late in the 2nd half. And when he did start to do it, he blitzed PETERSON. Plain and simple, you can not send your best defender, and quite possibly the best cornerback in college football. Peterson was ineffective for most of the 2nd half and then Chavis has the audacity to take him out of a number of plays (one of which caused UNC's last TD)

- The run defense was superb, minus a few missed tackles, which were the outcome of players trying to make big hits on big running backs. On most plays, you saw a number of guys right around them right at the line.

- The LSU offense (specifically Crowton) failed majorly to take advantage of the huge holes of the UNC defense. Even though you gameplan for a completely there UNC team, you have to assume (like many of you did) based on accurate assumptions that most of those players were going to be gone. It's the same thing when a team suffers an injury, what do you do? You attack their weakness...

-UNC still had two great d-linemen (Coples and Powell) and their two stud linebackers (Carter and Sturdivant). Their whole secondary was dismantled, yet it was still a 36:21 run to pass ratio. Jefferson made a lot of good passes, yet they went away from the short passes, which was what UNC drove down the field constantly on us.

On Player Notes:

- Hurst has go to go. I don't care if it's Faulk, Evan Washington, or Greg Shaw, someone has to replace him. My buddy even once said, "I feel like I'm watching the Lingerie League with the way Hurst is blocking." Coples dominated him all game long.

- "T-Bob needs to be taken out back and beaten like the redneck name he was given. Another gem from my buddy, but T-Bob cost us 10 points in the matter of two plays. He commits a hold on Ridley's touchdown, where his hold had no effect on what Ridley would have down. Then, he was out in no man's land when Jefferson had his intentional grounding penalty. Jefferson, running for his life, quickly saw an LSU jersey where you would expect your running back or safety valve (if there was one that play) to be, yet it was T-Bob nowhere close to the rest of the linemen.

- Mathieu and Loston need to start in the secondary, Brockers needs to start on the line, and Minter needs to start until Baker returns. These 4 players played light years ahead of the guys who started in front of them (Claiborne, Taylor, Levingston, and Barrow respectively)

- Ford or Ware HAS to get snaps. Someone needs to light a fire under Ridley's arse to make him realize that fumbling the ball twice isn't going to cut it at a major school

- As good as Peterson was, he needs to be taken off return duties or get his return workload cut down. By doing both return duties, he hurt us on the defensive side having to rely on Claiborne and Mathieu most of the 2nd half.

OUT OF ALL THIS, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:

It's the first week and everyone will be rusty. There wasn't one ranked team that won huge over a TOUGH team. Bama and Oregon beat glorified high school teams. Bama's biggest weakness, trying to find replacements for their big names on defense, disappeared when playing such a horrible team in San Jose State.

Also, straight from him: Texas, Florida, USC, Oklahoma, and Penn State all would have lost to even this UNC team, if they played them tonight. This guy in no way is a LSU homer and trying to shine a better light on this game. While we did rag on a number of guys mentioned above, we still held on to beat a highly motivated UNC team. Be proud of that and still have fun, be happy LSU won, and get drunk tonight And with that, I am out and hope you guys enjoy this