re: LSU Players, Moffit, and the Combine

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this would seem to be the common sentiment even in the absence of any possible data.

I submit there is no way to know how good Moffit is. I also submit that there is no proprietary knowledge about weight training in LSU's weight room.

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Possible data? Past LSU off-season work outs are floating around on the internet. Do a youtube search for Moffitt and he discusses form, etc.

There's data out there. He has the reputation he does because of results fwiw.

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He has the reputation he does because of results fwiw.

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Yep.
Also, being the strenght and conditioning coach for four different national championship teams(3 schools) means alot.

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don't you know that the roughly 25 incoming freshmen at LSU are the fastest, strongest, most athletic, most intelligent, all around best 25 HS seniors from that previous spring? it's the les miles led coaching staff that turns them into slow, dumb, soft buffoons. this is why true freshman should start at every position every season at LSU.

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no doubt, I read on Facebook the other day that some of our incoming guys are running in the high 4.1's with 40+ reps...and that's just the kicker.

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Moffitt's job is to help LSU win football games. It is not his job to create impressive combine numbers.

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I've already gotten into arguments about this a lot over the past year, but just to add a few more points into the mix, I'll say the following:

(1) It's not like all the LSU fans worried about the S&C program are worried just because of what happens at the NFL Combine and on NFL Draft Day. For me, I don't care as much about these things as most, but when LSU doesn't do great, it's just a confirmation of what I already saw on the field that got me disappointed in the first place.

(2) What gets me disappointed in the first place is to see a pattern over the last 4 years or so where very good LSU freshmen and sophomores don't seem to get themselves in better shape to improve themselves as juniors and seniors.

There are 2 places that are especially sore points for me. One is defensive linemen who don't get any stronger, and the other are backs that blow up and get too big to be effective in games.

We might be able to chalk up woes on the O-line to horribly bad recruiting luck and freak/lingering injuries (see Will Arnold, Ciron Black, etc.), but I don't see how you can explain away the senior seasons of players like Charles Alexander, Pep Levingston, and Al Woods. Put simply, these guys flat did not get themselves in better shape to get a better push on the line with age. Compare them to how crazy strong Chad Lavalais got in 2003.

With the backs, I'm just sick and tired of seeing guys like Danny McCray, Karnell Hatcher, Charles Scott (in 2008, not in 2009), who are clearly allowing themselves to get too fat for the position they play. There is no reason why McCray or Hatcher should have had stomachs sticking out as far as they did. Something went wrong.

I don't blame Moffitt. Ultimately, ensuring weight room discipline falls on Les Miles as the head coach. I just know that S&C has not given LSU an advantage over other SEC schools in recent years, and in fact, it has often seemed to work to our disadvantage.

But all is not gloom and doom. In 2010 we had an incredible number of freshmen and sophomores contribute, many of whom looked spectacular.

So people think that the LSU S&C program still has the old magic from 2003 through 2006? Okay, then. Let's wait and see if the team can prove it. Let's see if all these young studs we have on the roster actually get physically better for their junior and senior season.

That's all I really care about.

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I'm just sick and tired of seeing guys like Danny McCray,

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you sure you're not thinking of someone else...McCray blew up pro-day.

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Doc Fenton

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You do realize both McCray and Al Woods had great pre-draft workouts last year right? Al Woods couldn't get a push because pound-for-pound, he was not a very good football player. Charles Alexander was also hurt most of his career. Using your two positions of example, I'd like to think that Drake Nevis showed a great improvement from the start of his career to now and despite whatever you think about his recent 40 time, so did stevan ridley.

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Al Woods couldn't get a push because pound-for-pound, he was not a very good football player.

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That sort of begs the question though.

Sure, there have been injuries. There always are.

Sure, there have been bright spots like Ridley, Nevis, PP, etc.

But just as a whole, on both sides of the line of scrimmage, we've seen older linemen who have gotten worse. And it's happened a lot.

And we've also seen a lot of safeties who looked like they were conditioning themselves to try to play FB.

It's just been so long since any of us have seen an originally average player surprise us during his college career by getting himself in much better shape than he was when he first got here. It just seems to never happen anymore.

Nevis was promising early, average as a soph, slightly above average as a junior but was really, really good as a senior.

Kelvin Shepard improved every single year.

Peterson improved between 2008 and 2009 and was lights out early in the season. Soemthing happened post-West Virginia but that's splittin hairs. He just stopped being the best football player in the country and slipped to being the best DB in the country.

I think each of our starting linemen showed marked improvement from 2009 to 2010. Other than Blackwell, we were blessed to be relatively injury free. But they were all better this year than 2009. Every single one of them.

So who regressed. Jordan Jefferson, but that's not a Moffit thing. #10 and #80 were sort of diasppointingly steady and #2 was only disapppointingly slightly improved. #19 had injury issues.

It's tough to say on Baker (that is, how much he improved) but I think it's fair to call his play "pretty good." The safeties have been problematic, but only marginally so.

In the whole then, I think LSU players that played key roles in 2009 were much better in 2010. So for that data set, I don't think there is much to criticize from an S&C perspective.

Let's see if they continue to improve or regress in 2011.

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and if our safeties continue to get too big toward the tail end of their careers, I will be pissed.

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I think about that as well...

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I see overweight versions of Reid & Loston getting burned on deep pass routes,

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That would make me extremely pissed

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senior seasons of players like Charles Alexander, Pep Levingston, and Al Woods.

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Lets start with Charles- a 6th year because he had so many career debilitating knee injuries not much you could expect there.

Pep had argurably his most successful season last year

Al Woods looked like tarzan and played like jane and was a combine monster



I dont know what you are getting at here