re: Just got the courage to rewatch the first half...

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Just got the courage to rewatch the first half... Jefferson was not as bad as you may think.

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OK, Just watched it myself. He was bad in the first half, just only slightly worse than normal JJ bad.

His second down run on the second drive started it. It was a weak drive where he held on to it, looked confused, then sat down in the slot. On the next play he does the polar opposite and throws to Ware on the option without so much as pretending to keep it. His defender slides off and tackles Ware from behind for no gain.

On the 3rd series he follows up a pass and scramble with a horrible zone read keeper for a loss of yards. The when they get some back on a pass the play calling comes to light with a screen to Blue for a loss.

What I did not see: The O-Line "blowing up". Outside of the false starts (not good, but you kinda expect 1 or 2) he got good pass coverage and our running backs had positive runs against a tough line. What screwed everything up was the option running plays and the insistence on running the WR screens that didn't work after the first one. Even the "blown Hurst play" that everyone refers to was the same blocking scheme used on the second play of the game when the call was a run to the left. When "the play" happened in the 3rd quarter it was preceded by a 5-10 second conversation between the left guard and JJ at the line of scrimmage that showed me something was screwed up on the play.

Probably not enough to pull JJ by Miles' standards in the first half, but the wheels definitely came of in the 3rd quarter early. JJ looked ticked off and distracted before the play where he threw the trophy away. He had just run a rather unsuccessful option pitch to Ware that resulted in a 2 yard loss (don't know why the box shows it as 1).

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I honestly stopped reading after this.

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sorry, but Jefferson was not terrible in the first half. He wasn't good, but he also wasn't terrible. The blame goes to the playcalling, which was terrible.

This thread is about the FIRST HALF!

I agree JJ wasnt horrible in the 1st half except for his inability to catch a shotgun snap and horrible option play.

The playcalling was aggravating as usually, predictably conservative, especially on 3rd down:
3&2 fumble snap (think it was a read or draw to ford)
3&10 option w/ ware shortside
3&4 swing pass to Blue shortside
3&7 swing pass to ware shortside
3&4 fumble snap (think was going to be option SS)

I do not understand this offensive staffs affinity for the short side of the field. Maybe there are really good reasons and maybe its not as drastic as i perceive it, but LSU sure does seem to run an inordinate amount of plays to the short side. Which seems to run counter to the idea of beating Bama with speed to the outside.

I still say 9-0 was the time when they needed to change the game plan. Kinda feared for the worse when it got up to 12-0. I think Les makes some changes next year - looking forward to a more balanced team (hopefully).

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He had one great pass all game long...it was to Odell in the Second half

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even on that play he missed deangelo Peterson WIDE OPEN for a sure TD in the middle of the field. no one within literally 18 yards of deangelo.

even when completing a pass he sucks

Let me add, that I started a thread predicting that JJ would have a great game because of the extra time to prepare and being a senior would give LSU the QB edge in the game.

I was just wrong.

I was one of the posters that support JJ's return and that "he would help us win a Championship."

he helped us win the Tennessee game and the Alabama game..

Beyond this acknowledgement of his contributions, JL should have remained the starter every single game.

The pass sets up the run against good run stop defenses.

We tried to challenge Alabama's ability to stop the run..with running wide.

JL should have started the Alabama game in shot gun formation...

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Jefferson was not as bad as you may think.

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He was pretty bad Chicken. The play-calling sucked but not any worse than Jefferson's execution. As usual, any pass he attempted beyond 5 yards was off target, with the exception of one nice completion to OBJ in the second half. He had receivers running open downfield 8 or ten times and completed only the one I just mentioned. Most of the time he hesitated, lost the window and pulled the ball down. The loss was a team effort but the young men who should have played and didn't certainly should take no credit for it in my book. No way I believe the Tigers are held to under 100 yards of offense with Lee playing the entire game. I could be wrong but no one can prove it thanks to Les.

Out of respect for Chicken I will go back at somepoint and re-watch the game.

Are there any LSU clips (youtube) available that just show the LSU plays?

I recorded it...but I'd rather just delete it than study whetheror not JJ was:

1. awful,
2. terrible
3. Or "Not as bad as you think".

Chicken, I'd like to get your impression of something that happened during the first half.

Before the game, I was expecting us to try to play up-tempo to limit their substitutions and wear them down a little. As I recall, on the third drive we did play some no-huddle. But of course the key to up-tempo play is making first downs and sustaining drives. It seemed to me that on that third drive, we finally managed to move the ball just a little bit. We made a first down (only one of the half) and might have made another except for a bad decision by Blue. As far as I know, we never went back to trying to play with tempo for the rest of the game.

So I've been wondering what might have happened if we had been able to sustain that drive for a couple more first downs. In your opinion, could it have given the offense a shot of confidence and possibly jump started them for the rest of the game? Could we have gotten that Bama defense back on their heels at all? Or was it just Bama's night and nothing we could have done would have mattered?