re: SPOILED Fan Base

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The OL was getting their arse kicked and nothing was done to slow it down. It took until into the 2nd half to tryyl going up tempo which is obviously where Daniels is more comfortable. That should have been known from practice and tried earlier IMO.

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Yeah, I very disappointed with the coaching staff. I thought they had bad game plans from the beginning, but was most disappointed in how long it took them to adjust—Kelly just said took them too long IN GAME to recognize what Florida State was doing to be able to adjust, and I was led to believe that that was going to be a specialty of this staff, particularly the coordinations and Kelly himself. But also, why were they not able to anticipate these issues beforehand and be prepared to adjust immediately. Did we not have an army of analysts breaking down film all summer to be prepared for just about ANYTHING FSU was even capable of throwing at us in order to adjust accordingly?

I wasn’t angry at the players themselves, except the 4-5 times when our pass rushing specialists or blitzes had their QB sacked, but couldn’t finish. Their QB made some nice plays to elude and escape our guys several times, but there were 4-5 plays where our guys simply had him and couldn’t finish and turned sure sacks into 3rd down conversions that extended drives. In hindsight, though, while certainly not excusing it, it was likely due more to a lack of live tackling in practice than a lack of effort, and I can live with that.

I’ll echo what someone else said about being very proud of the players for not giving up. We gave up a long touchdown pass and lost a captain (and our 2nd of 3 1st team DLs) to a targeting on the same play to go down 17-3. It would have been really easy to give up and wind up losing 28-3, but they rallied to give themselves a shot. So the overall not giving up was something to be proud of. But there were a couple of specific things that caught my eye that I really liked:

1) the 99-yard drive is an obvious one

2) after the 2nd muffed punt by Nabers that really should have ended the game, I saw a ton of players go up to him to pick him up. They did it individually, then a group rallied around him when he got to the sidelines on the bench to pick him up. That showed a lot of team character.

3) again, after that 2nd Nabers muff that came on the heels of the defense who got a huge stop to get off the field to give us a chance to tie it when they couldn’t get off the field all night, they went out and made their 2nd goal line stand of the night and caused a fumble after stopping them on the 1st 2 downs. It would have been really easy to be pissed, frustrated, and deflated and let Florida State score on 1st down, but they bowed their necks and shut them down. That was impressive.

4) I’m not sure when it was—I think it was after the pass that hit him in the numbers—but I saw Daniels walking with Boutte on the sidelines with his arm around him. He wasn’t yelling at him or getting on to him, he was picking him up and telling him to hang in there, that we were gonna need him and he still believed and was gonna keep looking for him and going to him. Tremendous leadership by Daniels.

So, I was disappointed in the coaches—no excuse for the lack of correct preparation and timely adjustments. But I think they will be extremely critical of themselves and we won’t see anything like that the rest of the season. Now, I don’t think we’re nearly as talented as we talked ourselves into thinking we were—especially our depth—and there might be games where we’re just outmanned and there simply aren’t any adjustments to be made that will allow us to win, but I don’t think they’ll be caught as off guard as they were Sunday.

But now that they’ve seen the guys out there against live bullets, I’m curious to see what personnel changes they make. Specifically at OL. Surely we won’t run those same 5 guys out there Saturday. At least not in those same spots. I think at the very least Cam Wire won’t be starting at RT. He not only got beat around the edge, there was at least 1 play where he literally got pushed backwards on his arse. If he’s not strong enough to not get pancaked and not quick enough to move laterally and not get beat off the edge, I’m not sure what he offers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the original lineup of Campbell, Shirts, Dellinger, Frazier, and Bradford (from left to right). We know Bradford isn’t getting pushed over, and he apparently is really athletic with great feet, just a little too heavy. Maybe they put him on a more strict diet and add a little cardio and try to get him to lose a quick 5-10 pounds in the next few weeks to hopefully be a little lighter on his feet before we get to Tennessee and Auburn. He should be able to handle Southern, MSU, and New Mexico State until then.

If LSU doesn’t blow out every opponent then half the people in this fan base come here to piss and moan with each other about how the sky is falling.

The 70’s are back.