This was one of the better week 2's in recent memory. Lots of good games in a slot usually reserved for a bunch of chump games I'm not interested in. It looks like week 3 gets that dubious honor this year, though, as Tennessee/Florida is one of only two non-LSU games that grabs my attention. I really wish the scheduling could have been a little more staggered though....I seriously thought about recording LSU and focusing on the other 3 great 6:30 matchups. But ultimately I just can't do it. If my team is playing, I gotta watch, even if it is Chattanooga. Catching up on the other games takes a while though, and I'm still working my way around to UGA/ND. Fortunately this week nothing catches my eye during our game other than Texas/USC, and that doesn't start until an hour and a half after our kickoff.
You're not going to care about this piece of TLDR since it's all about LSU, but that's okay. Use the comments to do the same for your team, and maybe I'll learn something.
It will take some time, even a few seasons probably, to figure out LSU's new identity. What can you count on from this new coach, what's his style, what are his tendencies, what does his personality dictate in different situations? Hard to even start figuring this year's team out with only BYU and FCS Chattanooga in the bag.
What I can see so far:
LSU is not at the same level as top teams at this juncture.
Holding BYU < 100 yards, scoreless, and never in LSU territory is a good showing against any FBS team, but as I halfway suspected, against Utah, BYU showed me their offense is hot garbage. I expect Wisconsin to treat BYU similarly. So I don't think that is something to make us too overly excited just yet.
Still, there are some good looking freshmen getting way into the mix, providing depth we weren't sure we'd have. To the point that I think one of our cornerbacks, Kevin Toliver II has lost his job to a noob, and I don't think Sr. Donnie Alexander did anything this week to stop noob Tyler Taylor from taking his OLB spot. The encouraging thing is, those are good players. Toliver, especially, is a good corner by LSU standards. The noob just appears to have come college ready. Safety Grant Delpit looks good with other starters, very much in the mold of Eric Reid/Jamal Adams. He got lost and burned badly a couple times on Chattanooga's junk-time TD drive with mostly no starters in to keep him straight. He'll need some time like most kids do, but he'll be a player.
The philosophical strategy for LSU appears to be the same as the Miles era. Run game first, ideally dominate TOP, risk-averse as far as turnover probability, play good defense, have the offense not screw things up. Miles also added blistering special teams (usually), and LSU doesn't have that right now, but it seems to be a shortcoming rather than an oversight. I think O still wants that to be a focus of the identity, he just doesn't have it.
The schematic strategy is different, as advertised. Last year Aranda spent 4-6 games trying to implement his preferred defensive scheme before finally just throwing his hands up and telling guys like Arden Key "You know what, screw it, just go do what you're good at." He kinda sorta abandoned his early experiment with the 3-4 in favor of more of a 4-3 "under" front which was a compromise of sorts. Through two games this year we've seen a true 3-4 base, though I'm curious to see what happens when Key is able to play....seems like his best damage last year came with a hand in the dirt. And while the 3-4-4 is the base set, we've spent a lot of time in the "speedy nickel" 2-4-5 set. Much less often we've seen a 3-3-5 nickel. These aren't strictly 2 gap techs up front though....true to what you'd expect from LSU the last 20 years, there are often linemen shooting gaps and attempting to disrupt the backfield.
Offense, we probably haven't seen everything Canada is working on, but here's what I've seen so far. There's more willingness to take what the defense gives as opposed to LSU's recent strategy of "We think we're better than you, you know what we want to do, come try and stop us." BYU kept six in the box most of the night, so LSU ran, ran again, and ran some more. Chattanooga had more of a team portrait at the line, so early on Etling threw against 1-on-1 more. The running game is still a bit of an enigma at this point. I'm not used to an offense that has a jet sweep threat as its base. I noticed that even when a guy comes around and doesn't get the ball, the play is still blocked, showcasing the threat. This seems to have accomplished two things we're not used to. One, defenses actually respect something we're showing them and their attention is occupied and there's a half-second more hesitation. Two, it means less blockers in on simple dive plays, and it's shown up in the ypc and highlight-reel plays (i.e., there haven't really been any).
In simplistic terms--and I could be wrong here--looks like we're trading big RB highlight runs for steady, consistent gains. At least that's what we're getting so far. Guice hasn't busted any big plays like the past couple seasons, but neither have the backs been popped at the line a percentage of the time like we're used to seeing. Our running game was more boom or bust and now seems to be more steadily hum-drum. And I think that's because there's less blockers initially, but also less commitment from a defense to keying on a back. What we're used to is 8 in the box, bunch formations and once the RB makes a cut there's not enough guys left in the secondary to quickly avoid a big play, or less frequently but often enough, the back can't get past the initial trash and is stopped for no gain. Now we're seeing a more even distribution of personnel from both teams, and the line either gets a push or they don't. We get a bunch of 5 yard runs instead of a usual sample of 8, 15, 1, 10, 0, etc.
We'll see how that works out. We're hardly the first SEC team to adopt this concept, and I can't help but notice those ground games routinely get demolished vs. the Alabama's of the world. That could just be talent up front though. There's also other examples of other very talented teams who have used similar concepts with great success. It's definitely new for us.
Etling looks good after his surgery. He doesn't have a big arm by premier FBS standards, but he sees the field well, doesn't do dumb things usually, and most refreshing for LSU fans, is relatively accurate. But he hasn't been tested against any fierce pass rush or talented secondaries, so, meh. LSU-Fan's battle-cry for the past ten seasons is that we just need game-manager-level of competence at QB and we'd win everything. Ok, I guess we'll see.
Major concerns are OL depth/performance, FG kicking, red-zone efficiency. Clanga has a pretty salty defense for now, so we'll either see progress or more holes exposed. Hopefully we'll know more after this week. Could use a bit more pass rush at times, maybe Arden Key can help that when he comes back.
This is not a great team, but could maybe get there. Feels like a 10-2 squad if things improve, maybe 9-3 or 8-4 if the problems are deeper and not fixable. Not an elite squad, but it does feel like the floor is above the disastrous level.
