Thoughts on 2009

I'm not really an optimist or a pessimist. I like to wait until I see what happens on the field and then make my assessments based on that. So before I tell you what I think about 2010, here's what I saw from the 2009 LSU football team, and what I think it means for the future.

An average NCAA quarterback. Jordan Jefferson is okay. Okay in the NCAA means a below-average SEC quarterback. He makes good plays and bad plays, but mostly average plays. He has no pocket presence and has adopted Jarrett Lee's habit of sprinting away from the line of scrimmage on deep drops. He is not accurate enough to deliver the ball on the move with poor mechanics, and his mechanics are often poor. He is much more likely to take a horrible sack or run out of bounds for a loss of yardage than he is to just throw it away.

It is as if the coaches spent the offseason showing Jefferson video "Clockwork Orange" style of Jarrett Lee's interception/touchdown combos in an effort to scare him into not throwing interceptions. We learned this last season: you cannot hide your quarterback in the SEC. You cannot design a game plan when you are scared of what he might do. Nor can you run an offense with a quarterback who combines inaccuracy with hesitation and no idea where the rush is. For the second straight season, LSU has been crippled by limited production from the position.

A really, really bad offensive line. There are many more emphatic adjectives that I could--and probably should--use to describe the line's performance, but I'm trying to be charitable for 2010. I saw LSU offensive linemen pushed into the backfield by teams from the WAC and Sun Belt. I saw defenses get multiple sacks using only three rushers. I saw 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 fail miserably because the running back had no hole to hit.

There is no substitute for good line play. You cannot scheme your way around a bad offensive line. If your quarterback is shaky, he needs protection to help him out. If your running backs aren't shifty--and LSU's really aren't--they need running lanes. This year's line gave nothing. They actually contributed nothing to the team at all. How this turned into a nine-win team is beyond me.

Iffy pass catchers. Brandon LaFell is highly rated at his position. Terrence Toliver has lots of talent. Richard Dickson is very popular. All three of them dropped a lot of passes this season. Along with making some big plays and scoring 11 touchdowns, LaFell had some inexplicable drops that brought back memories of 2007 . Toliver's hands don't match the rest of him. Richard Dickson was an invisible man, and I always thought tight ends were a young QB's best friend. In 13 games, he caught 21 passes for 157 yards. Part of that is the quarterback, but he had several drops on his own. In short, there was very little to fear from LSU's passing attack, allowing defenses to load up on the run and pressure the QB.

No offensive identity. Was LSU a passing offense? A running offense? A power offense? A finesse offense? I don't know. I think they tried to be a spread offense, but failed at every level. Take a look at some other spread teams like Oregon, Texas Tech, Florida, etc. See how big the field looks when they have the ball. In contrast, LSU somehow manages to shrink the field and eliminate room for playmakers to work. If you had to point to something and say, "This is what they do well" what would it be? Commit stupid penalties? Run the option when they shouldn't?

A blockable defensive line. Name somebody who played well this season. I guess Nevis, who had ten tackles for loss and four sacks. Other than that the line spent long stretches of games being neutralized up front and not getting any pressure on the quarterback. Rahim Alem in particular is notable for his lack of discipline and tendency to either rush so far upfield that Brick Haley has to go pick him up in Denham Springs after every play, or to crash so hard on play action that he may as well take a nap until the play is over. He was the standout player on last season's awful unit, so people bumped up expectations for this season. It's not like he spent the season being doubled, either. No-name offensive tackles handled him one on one with relative ease. Unless somebody like Sam Montgomery steps up next season to become a terror off the edge, I don't see how the defensive line will be any better.

Much better linebackers. For years I've heard LSU fans complain about the position, but this season they were the best unit on the field. Harry Coleman was outstanding, and Kelvin Sheppard was a tackling machine. Perry Riley got most of the praise in preseason, but everybody was good. Even Jacob Cutrera had a game-changing play against Washington. Having said all this, if you have to choose between great defensive line play or great linebacker play, take the former. It's much better to have average linebackers making plays behind a dominant defensive line than to have great linebackers trying to clean up the mess left by average linemen.

A Superstar, a Hitter, and Me(h). Patrick Peterson was fantastic most of the year, then had his worst game against Penn State. I think he was jobbed on a couple of calls in SEC play when he did amazing things, but I can still do without him giving the "hands to shoulder level" pose after making a solo tackle on a seven yard gain. Chad Jones emerged as a physical presence in the secondary, almost killing both Joe Adams and himself along the way. I'd still like to see him make more plays on the ball downfield. The platoon at the other CB spot, Brandon Taylor's bad angles, and Danny McCray weren't very good against good to very good competition. I think John Chavis spent a lot of time gambling on the run (Jai Eugene in the game) vs. the pass (Chris Hawkins). He did a pretty good job, too.

The Quarterback Who Did Not Pass. Russell Shepard ran the ball 45 times, caught five passes, and handed it off a few more times. He did not throw one single pass. Look at his season statistics, and see that he did not carry it more than 6 times in any game. Three games saw him not even take the field. Was everybody else so good on offense that LSU could afford to minimize one of the most electric recruits in the country? I doubt it.

So what does all of this mean for 2010? Honestly, I don't see how LSU will be any better. If Jordan Jefferson didn't improve that much--or at all--between the Washington game and the Penn State game, why should I expect him to get better between now and September? The same goes for the offensive and defensive lines. Brandon LaFell is leaving a big hole in the receiving corps. The running game will be counting on...who? Two good linebackers are gone. The best player from the last two recruiting classes not named Patrick Peterson, is...who?