re: The passing game is not going to open up

That's all fine and good, but there in lies the problem. When you face teams that can shut down your running game even with remote success and can score points you have two choices, either lose or throw the ball some and we have been doing the first too often

Even the biggest Miles critics (like me) don't expect or necessarily want 30+ passes a game.

We would just like to believe that we could do it if needed to win a game.

I don't think anyone realistically expects this. I think all of us pumpers believe we will open up the offense. We have seen exactly 2 5 loss seasons and 1 4 loss season in Miles 10 years so how would that have been seeing "enough" 4-5 loss seasons to come to any conclusion.

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Are we going to wait on LES to get the passing game rolling?? Good luck

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Oh...nevermind...


PS Just to play Devil's advocate...below are last years passing stats vs Ole Miss and Bama respectively. Sure we lost the Bama game, but anyone watching that game realizes that we lost due to a late game collapse far more than our offensive scheme. Again, I am not saying this is what I want for our passing game, nor what I expect for it. But it seems pretty foolish to just proclaim that that recipe "will not win in the SEC".


LSU Passing
C/ATT YDS AVG TD INT QBR
Anthony Jennings 8/16 142 8.9 1 2 32.8
TEAM 8/16 142 8.9 1 2 --


LSU Passing
C/ATT YDS AVG TD INT QBR
Anthony Jennings 8/26 76 2.9 1 1 11.6
TEAM 8/26 76 2.9 1 1 --

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Miles sticks with what he knows, and when he has the talent

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and even when he doesn't have the talent

OK, so let's base it on an entire 13 game season.

Is this the stat line of a coach who will never, ever, throw the football?

Rush attempts: 450
Net rush yards: 2155
Pass attempts: 368
Pass completions: 245
Passing yards: 3272

That's 28 pass attempts per game (the earlier-mentioned standard for "slinging it around" is 30) and just over 250 yards per game. Way more passing yards than rushing.

These stats are for a Les Miles-coached LSU team.

Perfectly fine to say that you're ready to see the 2015 team open up the passing game more, and will need to do so in some of the games between now and November.

But to say that a Les Miles-coached team would never throw the football?

Sorry - the facts simply don't support that.

what year was that?

Glad you asked - 2006.

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It will open up. No where to go but more open.

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I think we will throw the ball more as the season goes on. We will have to. I don't think we will run for that many yards against some of the defences we will face.

If you want a good guideline as to what we will likely see over the next few weeks, look back to the first half of the 2011 season with Lee at QB. I know, different QB style, different OC, yada, yada, yada. Still, there were enough weapons on that team that they slowly did open things up over the course of 4-5 games. It may be mostly looking for big plays down the field, but we're going to see the staff progressively ask more and more of Harris through the first half of the season. However, while the staff may ask more of him, that likely won't mean a lot more passes. I think we will mainly see more diversity, and more deep shots unless we get behind Ina game by multiple scores.