LSU's defensive backs could have been more talented, but I don't care about that. I care what they DO. They were ballhawks, and great.
But Bama allowed 4.3 yds per pass attempt. In 2011. That's obscene. Allowed under 50% completions. All-time best.
As for the QBs, Jarrett Lee had a 62% comp rate, with 14 TDs and 3 INTs. 152 rating. That's perfectly fine. Not a problem. But I agree that he wasn't as good as those stats, but that's what happened on the field. Jefferson had potential, but wasn't as good. Miles not starting (much less playing) Lee was one of the worst calls ever, in the moment (not after the fact). Saban must've been so happy, not having to face a functional QB. They focused on stopping LSU's run (which they did) because Jefferson posed ZERO passing threat.
You know how I'm critical of Staubach's standing as an all-time great and how people rate VY over Tebow because both of their best attribute is scrambling?? Les Miles chose his QB for the NCG based on being a good scrambler.
Fucking asinine.
You're facing the best pass defense maybe ever...you need the best passer you have. Period.
I don't expect to convince you, but I'll try to explain my disagreement.
On the pass defense, I don't begrudge anyone who favors Bama. The numbers are what they are, and that Bama secondary had a lot of NFL talent (I know NFL career technically has no bearing on discussions like these, but I do think those data points are retroactively useful as additional context, although not a be-all, end-all). When I look at the players directly, here's my thinking. 1) They played a much lesser schedule than LSU did. They simply weren't defending across the season what LSU dealt with. LSU's team was not only all-time, it was an all-time schedule. 2) Pass defense is as much a function of pass rush as the skill of the secondary. Bama had a clear edge there. I'd call the lines a wash, they were both great. I'm tempted to give LSU the edge, but I can't argue that Bama's DL was insane. But Bama crushed LSU in the LB unit. I wouldn't call LSU's LB corp that year weak, but they were far and away the weakest link of that defense, and nowhere near as good as Bama's crew. Bama was able to harass QBs with their LBs and thus help their secondary in a way that LSU was not. LSU's DBs had more on their plates than Alabama's did, both in terms of quality of team faced and in help received from the front 7, and I don't think that's debatable. Whether or not it offsets the differences in raw numbers will be a subjective thing, and again, I don't fault anyone for siding with the insane numbers. 3) Raw skill does matter to me. Bama's guys had it in spades. LSU just had it more. And more of it. There was virtually no drop-off from the starting CBs to the two main backups, which I've never seen elsewhere. We talk a lot about "yeah, we're 4, 5, 6 deep blah blah...." That usually means the backups are still good, but it almost never means there's actually no difference. The starting safeties actually were better than the primary backups (as per usual), but the rotation was still good, and, for various reasons, the starting safeties didn't have to come out of the game much. And then there's the NFL side of the respective two-deeps, which again I concede is of limited use in a college discussion, but it lends more support after the fact that my impression of the two teams was correct. There's some extrapolating going on there, because two of LSU's guys from that unit were plagued by and/or had their careers quickly ended by injuries, so I'm only able to look at what they did when healthy in a shorter time frame for a couple of them. If I look at a team and realize they're hurt when, for example, Dre Kirkpatrick goes out of the game, and I look at another team and realize it doesn't matter if Morris Claiborne leaves the game or not, that means something. LSU's raw numbers were also hurt by the WVU game, but that's a whole other thing. Chavis had a particular plan for that game and later said he probably would do things differently. I thought it was brilliant. It did allow a ton of passing yards, but it succeeded in making those yards pointless and fruitless. They never used that scheme in any other games. And, most unfortunately, Claiborne allowed a LONG td when he slipped and fell. Oh well. I don't know how much the raw numbers change based on that game, but it definitely hurts LSU in that category, yet nothing about it suggests to me they were a lesser unit than Bama had.
Re: the QBs, most of the dissident LSU fans agree with you. They'll always think Lee should've played in the NC. Neither opinion can prove a counter-factual, but we do have evidence in this case, since the teams played twice. Jefferson had horrible, awful yips. Lee's were worse. We saw what Lee looked like against Alabama in round 1. As bad as Jefferson was--and he was terrible--Lee was worse. It's why Lee finally got benched in the regular season game. Jefferson was still trash, but he quit hurting us as much as Lee (and he did manage a couple of nice read-options that ultimately made the difference). Do you try something--anything--different, when you're struggling? Sure, ok, fair enough. Do I think Lee would've done ANYTHING positive against Alabama? No, because he was god-awful the first time around. He achieved "perfectly fine" when the rest of the team took everything off his plate, as I said. The minute the pocket got tricky and things sped up, he was a liability every bit of the caliber of Jefferson, if not more. The much more glaring issue imo (and many others) is not playing T-Bob Hebert at center in the NC. He was the backup to starter PJ Lonergan who was injured for the regular season Bama game, and Hebert acquitted himself rather well. Though he was supposed to be the "lesser" of the two players, it has to be noted Lonergan got his ass whipped the entire NC game by Bama's NT. Why not go back to the guy who played that DT to a decent stalemate in the first contest? Even if he's the backup. To the exact opposite of Jarrett Lee's case, Hebert had a history of doing better against Alabama. It famously lead to his dad, former QB Bobby Hebert chewing Les' ass from the audience at the post-game presser. And why abandon the toss dive, your bread and butter, just because Alabama is good? They ran it twice, and it went for 5 yards a pop. So you don't do it again, because.....they know you're gonna do it? And why couldn't Chavis adjust to the simple smash-left zone concept Bama ran over and over and over? They weren't abusing our line, Chavis just wouldn't change his alignment to deal with it. The other thing that was off about that game was Mathieu's inability to cover a simple out-route, something he generally did very well through his long career. That's not a coaching call, I'm only adding that here to note the overall oddness of the rematch. I guess everybody has bad games, that was definitely one for him. Alabama put together some drives and kicked several field goals because LSU couldn't stop the same two plays over and over. Weird.
Anyway, like I said, I'm sure none of that is convincing to you at all. Just the way I see things, and why.
