What a weird weekend. Halfway to Baton Rouge my wife got a call that her grandpa passed. We were riding with friends and there was nothing we could do. We weren't going to drive up to north Texas that day anyway, so there was no point in not continuing on. But she was understandably kinda zoned out for the rest of the day. I tried to enjoy the game as best I could, but it doesn't seem nearly so important or even fun when when your wife is right there and you know she's having a crappy day.
Then after the game I saw on fb that the wife in a couple who are old friends of mine passed sometime during the game from her long bout with an aggressive spinal tumor that had metastasized into her abdominal area. It wasn't exactly unexpected, but she had beat the odds for so long with various improvements along the way that the doctors at MD Anderson didn't see coming that I guess you kind of keep hoping somehow it won't finally happen. They have 4 kids all below age 12 or so and the whole thing just sucks.
In between all that, there was a game with Ole Miss, who I hate, so here's my thoughts on that:
It probably helped a whole bunch that their best rusher was out for the game and they lost their top two tacklers (best LB and best safety) during the course of the game. LSU's offense really started to pile on them as those guys were unavailable. I don't know that Ole Miss is as poor or LSU is as good as either looked. I don't know if having everyone available would've been enough for the Rebels to win, but common sense says they'd have been in better shape.
Still, the defense played one of the best games against an RPO offense that I've ever seen. Well....after the first quarter anyway, which of course featured LSU doing zilch to slow them down. The D still needs some roster-building, especially in the secondary, but they do seem well-coached overall. I admit at 14-3 I thought it was over, and at 17-3 I was sure of it. I guess the antidote to starting poorly is finishing on a 42-3 run.
The special teams went from horrible liability all season to.....really good. For the day, anyway. Amazing what can happen in a game when you don't give the opponent a few unearned scores.
The offense is still questionable. For all the numbers Daniels put up, it's hard to ignore that it doesn't look like his game would work against an excellent defense. I rewatched the game on tv last night, and I was reminded of how much you can't see on camera. There were two plays Ole Miss busted coverage badly...I mean we had a wr WIDE open, and Daniels didn't see them. I think he scrambled for positive yards, and I don't know if there was pressure keeping his eyes from staying downfield, but those were TDs. You really can't miss stuff like that. On the first TD pass he did make, that throw was way late and he was fortunate it wasn't intercepted. The WR was very open midway through the route, which is when the ball should have been coming. By the time he actually threw the ball, the receiver had stopped in the endzone, the corner had caught up and the safety had time to get over, so it was double coverage. The WR basically intercepted the ball from the DBs, which is more fortunate than good for the QB. Thing is, that play WAS there for an easy TD....but you have to throw the ball way earlier. That was kind of a theme I noticed. Early on LSU receivers didn't get much separation. As the game went on they got what I call "SEC separation" by which I mean they're not wide open but a decent QB has to pull the trigger on those plays and trust his accuracy and his receivers. But he's still scared of those plays. He also didn't get through progressions, that I could tell, he found his first read and if it wasn't there, he stared at it until he had to scramble. This may work against Arkansas and A&M, but I'd expect significantly less production against Alabama.
All that said, I maintain the team has made noticeable progress since the Florida State opener. Even one less special teams gaffe probably wins that one, and we "could be" 7-1. And I'll go to my grave believing if LSU had a game under their belt at the time as FSU did, we probably win that. This isn't a team ready to contend for anything, but the kids are playing hard, they don't quit, and imo there are signs the players are pretty well coached overall and starting to have some trust in the new staff. If things continue as they have this season, they could be "LSU" again in 2024, maybe pretty decent in 2023 depending on the QB situation. At any rate, considering where we started at the end of the Coach O era, I'm happy with the progress shown so far.
