sushihorn

Heck the season aggy just finished, the cuck managed 13 points vs MSU and 14 in regulation vs UK.

May God have mercy on LBs in coverage because Bijan sure won't have any mercy.

It's only at the top when aggy does something exceptionally stupid. That's why it's at the top a lot.

In a back asswards way yes. Both spring games told me little in and of themselves. So in both cases I expect much the same as last season.

I had to settle for highlights that covered about a third of the plays in aggregate. The box score from the LSU website tells more of a story. The video just tells you if the statistical conclusions make sense or not.

Sure but they're a good fit for his system. It's all about role playing and being able to take the pounding week to week.

The results of LSU's spring game highlighted some of the issues I've mentioned. Sacks were a huge one and rushing average was the other. The two teams ran for 2.8 YPC and 1.7 YPC. Neither one is good. But that's pretty much what you'd expect against a good defense after last season's actual performance. LSU's top 2 QBs combined for 49 pass attempts and were sacked TEN TIMES in the process. Obviously the inability to stop penetration and to pass protect from last season are still very much a live issue. If Coach O is fielding a different team in 2019 it sure didn't show up in their spring game.

"This is not the Giles you're looking for." (waves hand)

I doubt they actually finish top 10 unless they have an unusually large class or finish very strong. They should pass Miami and may pass Michigan. But both Texas and OU are pretty much guaranteed to pass aggy. Florida, FSU and Auburn are in good shape to do the same. Then there's a group of teams with somewhat lower averages that often get elite players historically. The group of dark horses would include Washington, Oregon, Tennessee, Stanford and Pedo State. I expect aggy to finish above their historic normal top 15-20 range but not by much. After the new coach hype bump, they are reverting to the norm pretty fast.

UCF showed that even a below average defense could stop LSU's running game if they committed to it - 3.1 YPC. Even with 4 non-P5 teams on the schedule, Tigah averaged barely 4 YPC on the season. Not scary at all.

Many older Texas fans have been wanting to see a return of the triple option for years. They may get it but not the way they expected.

I gave him every chance to be reasonable and he failed like a Darwin Award winner. Been a while since we had a good jihad on surly.

You're first paragraph is correct. What you're missing is that 2018 Texas was a team that passed to open up the run. When Herman deliberately limited his own passing attack, that concept no longer worked. Then you get the 2nd half @KSU. I understand that your team and most of their conference mates take the opposite approach. They run first to force the defense to over-commit to the box. THEN they throw over the top. Texas did not do that. They probably could not do that last year. The last 2 coaching changes left hot garbage on the OL. In 2017 the line was marginal and that was an IMPROVEMENT. In 2018 they moved up to average. I expect them to be above average and maybe even good in 2019.

You've got that completely bass ackwards. LIMITING the offense to dink and dunk ALLOWED KSU to play frequently play 9-10 defenders w/in 8 yds of the line. Sam threw more intermediate passes during the last drive of the 1st Q than during the entire 2nd half. There was a clear change to much more conservative passing and that allowed KSU to get the extra bodies forward to stop the running game. Compare the KSU defensive alignments in the 2nd half v the 1st. If you watch and analyze it honestly the difference will be clear.

LSU is not the same team on the road that they are at home. That much is certainly true. But "pathetic" is WAAAYYY overstating the case.

What exactly do you call it when only ONE pass is thrown more than 12 yds past the LOS the entire 2nd half. That was a 15 yarder to LJH that he turned upfield for a little extra. There were 2 incompletions on 3rd and long that went 8-10 yds downfield. Everything else was within FIVE yds of the LOS. 2nd half passes were for 1, 5, 5, 5, 12 (screen), 9, 20 (LJH), 6, 7, 5, 5, and 12 yards. Passing became predictable w/in 5 yds of the LOS other than on 3rd and long. That allowed the entire defense to creep forward - making it easier to shut down the run. It was way too conservative and looked like something LSU would run - not Texas. The result was equally predictable but Herman avoided the turnover and preserved the win. Don't worry. You won't see anything that looks like that unless Texas gets a 3 TD lead.

In the spring game LSU was 55% run instead of the 60% they averaged last year. The only thing that really looked different was they threw to the backs a bit more.

Colin Johnson soars. Sooner Ewok sadly weeps. Bodies fly on D.

I can't give you cumulative stats but in the Sugar Bowl, Texas converted a bunch of 3rd and 6+ situations. That was true in many games. If you think about it, that almost has to be true. The conventional rushing attack was only marginal for most of the season. That lead to a lot of 3rd and longs. Yet the Horns managed a very nice 46.4% 3rd down conversion rate. So inference + eyeball.

Receivers Burrow will have some athletic WRs to throw to; Jefferson at the X position is a tough match up but again like Georgia they don’t have anything equal to what Texas sees weekly in the Big XII at wideout. That is especially true in terms of reliability and diagnosing the defense. The receiver corps looks impressive on paper but they are much better athletes than they are pass catchers. They have more size than Georgia (6’6”, 6’4”, 6’2”, 6’1 and 5’ll” coming back in 2019) but less speed and quickness though still quite good for their size. They also aren’t great route runners and had a lot of drops last season. Soph year John Burt is a pretty good comp for much of LSU’s WR unit. Expect some spectacular catches combined with even more drops and poorly run routes. Line The O-Line is enormous but a bit heavy footed. Projected starters based on the spring game are #68 Charles at LT (305 lbs), #72 Magee LG (335), #79 Cushenberry C (309), #68 Lewis RG (322) and #76 Deculus RT (321). Charles is solid but Deculus looks particularly vulnerable. He’s an OG playing out of position and he got burned regularly by speed rushers. That is really a bad situation against defenses that like to bring pressure from the outside. He’s going to be lined up against Ossai quite a bit and things could get ugly unless LSU keeps a TE in to help Deculus pass protect. The Guards are slow but powerful. They remind me a lot of Vahe – better run blockers than pass protectors but sometimes give up penetration into the backfield. Watch some games and you’ll see that there is definitely more than a little bit of Fatball™ being played in Baton Rouge. The O-Line can make crushing run blocks at times but they also give up an inordinate number of negative plays to opposing defenses. They gave up 35 sacks in 2018, which is big considering the low number of pass attempts. The sack ratio of almost 9.0% is appallingly high and one will usually terminate a drive. They also gave up a total of 89 TFLs. That was a problem for an offense that relies on running the ball and a negative play is usually a drive killer. The 54 non-sack TFLs represent a loss on almost 10% of LSU’s rush attempts. There is a good reason their offense is not very efficient. Coaching and Summary The offensive play calling tends to stick stubbornly with the run even when it’s not appropriate. LSU will often continue to run into stacked fronts and this can be seen in their bowl game. They faced one of the worst rushing defenses in the country - #117 UCF. The Knights loaded the box and played man-free coverage behind it. That meant 1 more defender than the offense could block. The result was pretty predictable – 3.1 YPC for LSU and they ran the ball 52 times into a brick wall. When Burrow threw the ball he did pretty well since the coverage was predictable and he could wait for receivers to come open because the defense was prioritizing stopping the run over pass rushing. Once the LSU coaches saw this happening they should have thrown the ball until UCF backed out and pulled a player out of the box and into coverage. Orlando has always schemed well against conventional teams that like to run the ball and he’s great at scheming extra players into the box. How will LSU respond when they line up in 11 personnel and see a 3-2 front with and NB overhang defender inside shade over the slot and a box safety 7 yds off the ball? Do they treat that as 5 box defenders or 7? USC couldn’t solve it and neither could Georgia. One additional factor is that LSU returns a lot from last year’s quality squad. But I do not expect LSU’s offense to be a big problem unless Texas turns the ball over or gives up big plays in the kicking game. If that happens enough times they can play with a lead and grind the defense down eventually. If not I’ve got them down for 13-17 points.

Note: This is broken up into 2 parts because of tl;dr and standard surly ADD. Contrary to popular belief, LSU is not a great running team. They’re not even that good a running team. They were quite average in 2018 with 4.0 YPC (recall UGa was 6.1 YPC). Their yards per attempt ranked #91 in the country. Taking out sacks, they rushed for 4.6 YPC against the standard 3 cupcake schedule and none of their RBs came close to averaging 5 yds per carry (again both of UGa’s were at 6.5 YPC going into the Sugar Bowl). I suspect many people only saw the LSU-Georgia game and are extrapolating from that season best performance fueled by 4 UGa turnovers. The design of the offense is very conservative, even more so than Georgia. LSU tries to protect the ball, control field position and wear down the defense but doesn’t score much. 20 points or less was typical against better defenses unless they got multiple turnovers or big special teams plays. 60/40 is their run-pass ratio with very heavy tendency to run between the tackles. Their top returning back Edwards-Helaire averaged 4.5 YPC in 2018. They have some talented youngsters incoming but there’s no way to assess how much impact they might have in game 2 of their career. Quarterback As with UGa the play calling tends towards run, run, deep shot with WR screens and hitches thrown in occasionally. But LSU has a much less accurate passer than Fromm. Joe Burrow completed 57.8% of his passes for 7.7 YPA. The main things in his favor are that he’s tough so he’s less likely to get rattled and he’s a pretty good runner. 6.3 YPC (sacks removed) is pretty darn good and higher than Sam’s. As a runner LSU’s QB is equivalent to Baylor’s Charlie Brewer or ISU’s Brock Purdy. As a passer Burrow would be one of the worst quarterbacks in the Big XII. If you want to see a statistical comparison of Burrow and Sam Ehlinger I did one in January here: Burrow protects the ball pretty well with only 5 INTs to go with his 16 TD last season. Put him in a hole and under pressure and that’s when the mistakes happen so getting a lead and forcing them to play catch up is important.

Outstanding athlete. He's dominating defenders whether he's covered or not. Great to hear that he showed outstanding hands in a camp setting.

It's the Hawaiian word for Hole.

All passes being thrown within 10 yds of the LOS puts a defense in a much better position to stop the run. And it loses a major advantage in that Sam Ehlinger is one of the most accurate intermediate passers in CFB.

I don't think it's a congenital issue. IMHO Herman's philosophy in 2018 was strongly shaped by the 2017 season. Keep in mind that Sam's late turnovers cost Texas the USC, OSU and TT games in 2017. THAT is the context in which Herman kept his QBs on a tight leash when he got a big lead in 2018. Looking at his pre-UT history, Tom Herman wasn't afraid to let it rip either as tOSU's OC or the HC at UH. I suspect he was just so traumatized by the mess that Charlie left that he overreacted in 2018. To me it looks like another example of perception lagging behind reality since Sam had one of the best streaks of ball security I've ever seen last season. Hopefully we will see pre-2017 Tom Herman again next year with the data from this year and the waves of talent coming into the program.