The Artful Dodger

Why do people still feel the need to defend Les Miles?

During his tenure at LSU we have seen:

1) Discipline problems
2) Mismanagement of the game clock
3) Failure to develop recruits
4) Inability to make adjustments
5) Brady level attrition? Rats off a sinking ship?

I loved our 2007 National Title, but the fact is if you ranked the BCS Championship teams since 1999, where would that LSU team rank? We lucked into that game and Les Miles has a knack for putting together a great gameplan -- with a month to plan. To bad we don't have a month between all of our games.

I will support LSU and I am a die hard fan, but it is pretty obvious Les Miles is not the man to keep us at the Upper Echelon of College Football.

As far as Nick Saban, he will lose a game that he isn't supposed to, but you will never have to worry about your team looking sloppy, and being completely inept while simultaneously being overly cocky. I think Saban will be at Alabama as long as the money is there and they still sacrifice their first born children on his altar, and he will, most likely win a few National Titles along the way.

In Nick Saban's first years at LSU and Alabama he had average seasons with bad losses to mid major teams. His second years always show vast improvement, but don't quite succeed. LSU in 2001 had some good and bad games, ended up winning the West and with some luck in the SECCG won the SEC Championship over a Tennessee team that would have likely played for a National Championship. Alabama lost to a badass UF team that won a National Championship.

In 2002, LSU was a Matt Mauck injury away from being a contender and then in Saban's 4th season won a National Championship. We will see how Alabama ends up, but I bet they will at least be a contender for the next couple years.

I understand that we, as laymen, cannot hope to understand all of the intricacies of running a Division I College Football program. But, from what I have seen, coupled with a limited knowledge of the X's and O's aspect of football, could this streamline our offense?

1. Use Jordan Jefferson in the shotgun or 5 wide. This would alleviate his 10 step drops which out runs his tackle protection. Also, from shotgun, he could see what the defense is doing better and be more apt to react faster.

2. Use Russell Shepherd on any designed QB keeper plays, option plays and maybe even some I formation (with short passes to build early confidence). Shepherd seems like a natural running the ball and finding the holes/corner. Although he is smallish and gets manhandled sometimes (with a couple fumbles). This will add another aspect to our offense, that teams would have to prepare for.

3. These designations do not mean that Jefferson couldn't be in for designed run, or run an option here or there (even though he hasn't looked good on the option plays thus far). It just give him a smaller number of plays/reads/offenses to learn right now.

4. Regarding the run game, it seems to me that runs to the outside and misdirection has been our most effective areas in the run game. Now I realize that running between the tackles is necessary but at the same time, if it isn't working by now, it may be time to "try" picking up ground yards somewhere else.


5. Use the H-Back screen more. I love some of our Wide Out screens, but I really believe that with our inability to block well, coupled with our problems developing a run threat, mixing in a screen with Scott or Keiland a few times a game will catch aggressive D's (like Saban's Bama D) off guard.

**this is, if Scott and Keiland are good catching out of the backfield, which I haven't seen them fail at.

I don't know, maybe I'm just frustrated with the product I have seen so far this season or maybe I just don't know enough about the nature of offensive gameplanning to know what our staff is trying to do.