re: LSU crossed midfield three times

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That starategy was fine we eliminated any chance of giving the ball back with a short field.

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Yeah, but by taking our sweet time we gave ourselves no chance to make something out of the drive.

It's one thing to avoid turnovers and avoid stopping the clock. It's another to take your sweet time so that you have no time to make something out of the drive if you happen to break some tackles and pick up 20 yards.

In the end, I don't think it would've mattered much and we're really splitting hairs. When you're on your own 5 the odds of making something out of the drive are pretty small against a defense like that.

Right and taking our time was done on propose so that they wouldn’t get the ball back. It was a safe play with no chance for Bama to have the ball again. Starting on your own 5 with 3 minutes left and a QB who wasn’t completing anything threatening you can’t risk a turnover or stopping the clock and punting.

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and we’re legitamely a couple of plays away from that win. We lost by 2 TDs genius.

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And they ran the clock out inside the red zone

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Take away that 54 yard run and we had 41 carries for 97 yards and don’t cross midfield in the second half.

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It happened. Get over it. We've had one long run in like 10 years against them and we have fans saying "well, if that wouldn't have happened..." Just like our long pass attempts weren't completed for the most part - that's what happened - we didn't complete them. We lost. They did some good things, and had some struggles. You can't take away whatever good things they did do though.

Number of replies going both ways in this thread. Here's my take (and for the record, I'm still not sold on O, and thought he was a mistake to hire):

What we saw Saturday was a vast improvement over the previous season, and showed that the coaches AND players understood what it took to win.
Last season, the defense played great, and the offense was shut out. We started one drive almost in scoring territory, and was pushed back and missed a long FG. We completed one lucky pass to Chark down the sideline. Beyond that, Bama completely dominated with their defense, and we would have lost had the game gone to OT 0-0. We just weren't going to score.

This season, we used the jet sweep effectively, made yards on it. The threat of it pulled the Bama D wider, and opened lanes to run. The threat of a running game allowed the line to pass-block, and Etling had time to throw. He made a couple good throws. He missed some long passes that would have been huge, but he SAW them, and TRIED to hit them.

That tells me the scheme worked. We had open WRs, and our QB saw them. He had time to get the pass off. He just doesn't have the God-given talent to make those passes. We didn't have that last year, and we didn't have that a lot of times against them.

Now, that isn't a moral victory, but it does provide hope and optimism. We did this with a young O Line that should return stronger. We have two physically gifted young QBs, hopefully one develops the same IQ as Etling has, and will far exceed his physical ability. If Brennan matures and has the arm he's supposed to, we can win this type of game next year with the same scheme.

To add- I don't think this scheme was designed to keep it close, so much as it doesn't work when far behind. You need time to run the ball. But if we had a legit passer, that opens the runs up more, and we can hang around and keep moving. At some point in the 2nd half, we got to where we couldn't keep running the same scheme and have any time to come back. If you make those passes earlier, we might have scored, and then the runs become more effective later.

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On 1-9, we never cross midfield

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This is BS and every fan that believes this to be true needs to stop being an LSU fan for contributing to the lie.

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We crossed midfield on our two scoring drives and once in the first quarter when it was 7-0 and we punted at the 39. That’s it.

But if we completed those passes!!!!

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It's a different game if we connect on a few routine TD passes.. but half the reason the game was so tough is that we were pinned near the 10 yard line about 6 times. Our special teams unit absolutely awful.. on the season 39.67 yards/punt (13th in SEC vs Power-5 opponents)

I think they should have been aggressive at the end of the second and try to score. It seemed they were playing too slow and conservative. playing not to lose.