re: JJ proved this season was a fluke

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lee had knowledge of the whole playbook at the start of the season.

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...and when I graduated with my doctorate more years ago than I care to remember, I had a boatload of book learning and experiential scenarios, even some carefully monitored internships while still in school, but precious little actual on the job experience where those scary decisions were all on me.

That scenario is a helluva lot different when you wake up in the midst of it, especially if it hits sooner than anyone expected. It takes a while to get acclimated to it. Most eventually master it and a few never do and move on to other pursuits.

As it relates to FB, whether JL will continue to improve and get past those poor reads and decision-making of the '08 season remains to be seen. As I've noted before, JJ looks to lead LSU into '09 and that's great. But it doesn't mean I don't still hope for the best for JL - this year reminded us experienced depth at the QB position is especially important.

Knowledge is a wonderful thing, but it is no replacement for actual experience.
Knowledge + experience = seasoned players for LSU at all positions, but especially under center on O.

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True, this year we didn't have a break late in the season, either, with the hurricane rescheduling. Three weeks gave the coaches and the players a chance to refocus and to play rested and on point.

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exactly and Healthy CScott and Oline had more to do with the arse kicking that we gave them than anything other that Special Teams.


IN 05 Addai and the OLine got healthy and ran over OM same thing.

There is little doubt that this season has a multitude of things to blame.

yes, letting RP get away with so much did not help miles instill discipline with his team.

Yes, the qb play was bad.

Yes the coaching was likely too soft. Whatever it was, there was problems with the coaching.

Yes the defense sucked. The whole defense sucked. The defensive line, which we all thought was great, played poorly most of the year. Did we have linebackers out there? And our dbs also gave up plenty of big plays.

It was a total defense collapse.

On offense, our qb sucked. We thought we would have qb problems, so that is something we expected. Our offensive line played poorly many times during the season.

So in a sense, i really don't blame the qb being a big problem. It was a known problem.

But the qb problem was made worse by many problems. Poor defensive play put us behind and made us pass more. Poor play calling by the OC made the qb try to make passes he shouldn't have been asked to make. Poor offensive line play hurt both the running and passing game.

Overall, it was a total system collapse. I have to say the ship righted itself against GT. It started evidently in practice where they ran some tough practices.

It continued with strong offensive line play allowing easy runs forcing GT to commit more players to stop the run opening up the passing game. And we won because our defense, all aspects of it, dominated GT.

In short, the qb play did not win us the GT game. All the other things did. We still would have blown out GT with JL or AH. The qb play helped us blow them out, but were not important for us winning.

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Ell great post! Obviously you know football and how a practice is run!

I agree with you. So do 90% of the fans.

We could have started him against appy. state and north texas. After that he would have been
ready for Au.

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90% of the fans??? Yea right. I've forgotten more football than you know.

QB was the main problem.Defense was bad too but those Pick sixes were the killer!

Temple Owl? I was attending Temple as a grad student when the Nation of Islam came to town and shut down campus and Broad Street. Were you there then?

Anyway, I agree - total system failure this year at LSU.

QB - obviously

Defense - no tackling, missed assignments, weak coverage...they played as if they didn't have a defensive coordinator.

Offensive - lackluster and out of sync, partly due to the QB, but partly due to an offensive coordinator asking an unprepared QB to throw the ball 20-40 times a game, rather than rely on a steady o-line and tailbacks and play field position.

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I totally agree with thetempleowl.

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Anyway, I agree - total system failure this year at LSU.

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These two obviously are extremely intelligent posters!

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I was attending Temple as a grad student when the Nation of Islam came to town and shut down campus and Broad Street. Were you there then?

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They have done that multiple times over the years.

Which time are you talking about?

I attended temple undergrad and grad school. I was there for a while...

Plus I am old...

I was at Temple 1989-1990, as a grad student.

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One theory is that the juniors and seniors on the team quit because a freshman QB made a ton of mistakes.

Another theory is that a freshman QB made a ton of mistakes because most of the juniors and seniors played like garbage.

It would have been interesting to see how a freshman QB could have played if our junior/senior lead defense would have played up to their potential instead of giving up TDs on teams opening drives every game of the year.

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Nice post. I think it's impossible to tell what poor situation promoted the other poor response. I too, would have like to see IF Jarrett Lee could have "grown" any more positivly if he hadn't always had to be trying to lead the team back from a deficit.

of couse, don't forget the theory that everyone just threw their arms up and surrendered because they wanted to be screw ups and not be held accountable, because that's how it worked for RP!

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I was at Temple 1989-1990, as a grad student.

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I was there from 88-92 undergrad, 92-96 grad. I remember the time you are talking about, but I forget what it was about.

There was also a time after I left which had something to do with Temple starting up on or before the MLK holiday.

Good to see a fellow owl.

How can I email you?