re: First time ever having four All-Americans for three straight years

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Hester and Mathieu are a few 3 that come to mind. What was our recruiting like 1999-2002?

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Mathieu was a 4 star. Hester was an outlier. Like I said “most” were 4 and 5 stars. I didn’t say none were. We've always had 3 star players that turned into starters for us, even since we were "winning championships." Included but not limited to Duke Riley, DJ Chark, John Battle, Russell Gage, Foster Moreau, Deion Jones, Dillon Gordon, Jalen Mills. Many of these guys not only were starters but stars and are on NFL rosters.

Our recruiting has been elite ever since Saban stepped foot on campus. It was also pretty good for most of Dinardo’s time here, not on th same level but not bad either.

No one is winning championships in this league with a bunch of three stars.

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It’s not even debatable, tough guy.

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Then why are you debating it? Funny. I could care less about rankings of offense or defense. I rely on the eye test and in my opinion our defense is without a doubt our best unit because I go to the games and watch them and I have felt that way for a few years, regardless of where we rank. Our offense, irregardless of ranking, as not visually impressed me for almost a decade so..

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Stinks that our D was not even top 10 with so many All-Americans. Makes you wonder how bad we would have been with only a $2 million man instead of the highest paid coordinator in the country. Thank goodness we have Aranda.

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moron

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LSU had 5 punts and a fumble in the first half of the Alabama game. 6 possessions 87 yards and ZERO POINTS. Yeah, the defense played well enough to give the offense the ball enough to have LSU up at the half. Ineptitude at play calling.

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The defense gave up almost 300 yards in the first half and 600 for the game. They were getting gashed. I will never understand why so many people refuse to acknowledge the defense didn’t have a good night either. It’s like they think it’s impossible for the defense to play poorly or it's somehow defending the offense to say the defense had a bad night (it's not). Put it another way...Had our offense had the night Alabama did, would you have thought Alabama's defense had a good night? (Assume they scored 0 points as well)

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That’s a fair question. Time of possseion was essentially the same for the Florida and A&M games. How was the O to blame if that is the case?

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I'd say the 2 costly turnovers by the offense might be a place to start in the Florida game. And the lack of points scored.

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So if our recruiting is the same or better than the 03-07 run why are we not sniffing even SEC West champs?

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Let's be honest, the 2007 team lost 2 SEC games. We've had seasons in 2006, 2010, 2012, and 2017 with that same SEC record and didn't "sniff" the West. The West and college football as a whole, fortunately for LSU, was without any dominant teams. We didn't have near the competition within our own division as we have since then. Regardless, I haven't argued that we haven't underachieved, so maybe direct this post at someone else. Although I will say that began long before Ed Orgeron was hired to be the head coach. Including the years we had Saban, we've only had three seasons with fewer than 2 SEC losses, 2003, 2005 and 2011.

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In my opinion, LSU’s largest problem has been convincing Juniors to stay their Senior year. Coach O said that is 1 of his main goals. Last year Clapp and Weathersby should have stayed.

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it is a massive problem and the way the NFL is, if you dont go in the 1st or 2nd round it is not worth even going... there are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more examples of why kids should have stayed then should have gone... you get the bulk of what you make in that first contract draft position. PERIOD... you cannot think that you are going to last 5 years in the league to get a retirement check... teams wont keep you that long unless you are producing.. plain and simple... most of the money they will get is in that first contract... unless you turn out to be a superstar or youre a guarantee top two rounds pick, the coach should advise them to stay and recruit them to stay... the nfl isnt going anywhere... It has litterally killed LSU and killed potential NFL careers...

The problem with the defense in the Florida game is that every time we took the lead after the first drive of the game, we immediately gave up a long TD drive. Now, the offense certainly deserves plenty of blame in the loss as they did basically nothing the entire game, but the defense had complete brain farts to allow Florida to score two of their TDs (long pass at the end of the first half and effortless drive to re-take the lead in the 4th quarter). Reminded me so much of a Les Miles/Chavis game. Offense dicks around the entire game, defense plays well but can' hold onto a late lead.

What I'm saying is Florida had about 100 yards of total offense in the second half on 5 drives with three 3-and-outs. We score a TD, finally, and Florida immediately and effortlessly moves down the field for a long TD drive to re-take the lead. That was very emblematic of a Chavis defense. I never said the defense played poorly or was the reason LSU lost, so calm down.

I swear some of you get way too offended if anyone ever criticizes the defense for absolutely anything. I can assure you they have not played perfect football the entire season. Yes, they have played much, much better than the offense, and the offense is much bigger deficiency on this team. But if you refuse to ever place any blame on the defense for any shortcomings they have ever had, then you aren't going to get very far in an argument. They don't just get a free-pass for their play, at any time, because the offense didn't do its job.

For instance, they give up nearly 600 yards of offense and 29 points to Alabama and we have fans, likely you included, who think the defense played well in that game. In what universe do those numbers lead someone to believe anyone did their job in the Alabama game? Sometimes, believe it or not, both units can play poorly in the same game.

Our defensive line struggled to put pressure on the QB all season and we were middle-of-the-road in the SEC stopping the run. We got pushed around upfront on both sides of the ball this year. Fortunately, we had good linebackers and a good secondary.