Just rewatched the NT game for the second time, and I believe this year’s offense along with J Mills and the freshmen linebackers have til the Florida game to reach their stride. Until then we will win by talent alone.

I’m always going to try to find a way to be optimistic about our team, but I wanted to address a few popular topics over the last 2 days in a positive light. Listening to a lot of people on here you would have thought we beat San Diego State 21-12. Yeah, we should have won by at least 10 more points but some of those 1st game mistakes can be corrected this week. Especially the penalties, which negated Mett from having over 200 passing yds, Shep from having a nice TD, and OBJ from having 2 punt return TDs to start the season.

I can’t really figure out why so many people are complaining about Mett’s play in his first FBS start. There was an abundantly clear improvement at QB play. He completed 19 passes, while 6 landed incomplete (2 were drops), and 1 in the hands of NT when his gunslinger instincts resulted in a forced pass (only after 2 LSU interior linemen failed to block 1 NT defender). Mett made several throws in that game that we haven’t seen since Jamarcus, both with his arm strength and accuracy (25 yd pass to OBJ over the middle, 34 yd TD pass to Boone – both were absolute LASERS that hit the receiver in the chest). He showed touch on the passes to Landry and the negated TD pass to Shep. I know we all expected to air it out, but unfortunately, so did North Texas. So you gotta take what you’re given (and we were given man coverage and a 10 yd cushion). There have been lots of complaints about bubble screens but we had success with them gaining several first downs (and may have had success with more if linemen would have correctly picked up down field blocks). The ball coming out of Mett’s hand even on short routes is in an entirely different category than what we’ve seen in since 06 or 07. He throws a tight spiral that reaches the receivers quickly (so they have time to look up field and make a move on the first tackler) and on stride (so receivers maintain momentum and speed prior to making their first move). Half of the interception must be blamed on Williford and Longergan who between the 2 of them failed to identify and block 1 NT curling from DE position over the top of the DT. But that’s only half of the excuse why Mett didn’t throw the ball out of the back of the endzone (I still like that he has the confidence in himself to make that play).

Overall, Mett must improve on presnap recognition of the defense along with decision-making with pressure in his face. However, it seems like over the last 4 years we have had much poorer decision making at the QB position. Grading him an A for the 1st game is a stretch, but he was a MAJOR UPGRADE from what we have become accustomed to. I have faith in him having a special year.

Other POSITIVE Notes:
- LBs - Kevin Minter was blowing up gaps all day, whether he was making the tackle or not, he allowed others to reach the ball carrier often at the line of scrimmage. Freshman LBs have SEC speed. Can’t wait to watch Debo Jones develop early this season. Muncie and Barrow also looked good.
- Special Teams - Not losing a step with OBJ at punt returner is encouraging (1 PR TD and counting…), Keehn made it look like Miles should stick with his Australian punter pipeline (the botched punt he kicked from our 20 to their 16 yd line was unbelievable – showing athleticism similar to his rockstar predecessor).
- RBs - I think Kenny Hilliard and Blue will stay in BEASTMODE all year but I hope Ford and Hill practice hard enough to continue to see play time. Ware – TBD.
- OL - Pass blocking has a ways to go to catch up to our run blocking (which looked just as outstanding as we have become accustomed to). We just missed too many blocks in the first game. Hopefully, it can be corrected in the first few games of the season.
- DL – They got plenty of push and pressure, the NT QB just got rid of the ball in about 2 secs for every pass (yeah NT did actually game plan to play us). Sonic Sam wasn’t in on much and it surprised me once when he didn’t blow up a running back blocking him (though I’m not sure what his assignment was on the play – let’s just say his job was to contain), but they ran the ball away from him and/or clipped his knees most plays he was in on.

I think this will be a very special LSU team. Mett-siah and the team as a whole must make corrections and improve throughout the season, but this was only 1 game. We will play better against Washington. Some LSU fans don’t need to be so critical yet. We have 4 more games to perfect who we are as a team this year (including Auburn – if Clemson ran all over them, we will too). About the time we have to head down to The Swamp is when the 2012 tiger squad needs to be nearing their full potential. Should be an exciting team to watch.