SB Nation User Blog: Poseur

Jefferson and Risk

Poseur — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:11:33 -0000

One of the major themes of this season was the way the offensive coaching staff managed the game as if they were petrified of the turnover. I've commented on this quite a bit, which led to much gnashing of teeth over the definition of "risk averse", but my basic argument was always that it seemed the coaches stressed not throwing picks above all else, which hindered the offense and Jordan Jefferson's development.

Well, since I like to cherry pick articles which support my position, James Varney of the Times-Picayune picks up with my theme in today's piece on Jefferson.

But in the passing game Jefferson hurt himself in two ways. First, his natural inclination to protect the football was heightened by a coaching staff petrified by the interceptions that haunted the team in 2008. That mindset created both a reluctance to take a chance and a frequent failure to get rid of the ball quickly. Those factors contributed to the alarming 35 sacks LSU allowed in 2009.

So pronounced was Jefferson's gunshy approach that on more than one occasion he scrambled out of bounds for a loss rather than hurl the ball away even when he was well outside the tackles.

When asked to assess his game's strengths and weaknesses Monday, Jefferson cited his fear of interceptions. While his ball control instincts are sound, he said he must balance them with a team's need for its quarterback to make plays.

"It has," he replied when asked if his tendency boosted the sack total. "Some of the sacks were errors that the line had, but I take responsibility for them."

There's both encouraging and discouraging things in that snippet, but let's first focus on the most important thing: I was right. This was a staff that was so intent on not having another interception meltdown that it absolutely dominated their mindset. Sure, we didn't throw many interceptions. Mission accomplished. But we did it at the expense of big plays, the use of the middle of the field, and taking way too many sacks. Frankly, the cost was way too high. A few interceptions is the cost of an offense that actually takes chances once in awhile. The reward is more big plays and the use of the whole field.

Let's start with the discouraging part of this clip since we're there already: this is what bad teams and bad coaches do. They obsess over the last mistake and overreact to correct that mistake at the expense of everything else. The cure becomes worse than the disease, and there's really no way to say we had a good offense this season. In fact, it was one of the worst in all of football, which is completely inexcusable given how much talent we line up every snap.

Jefferson seems like a very coachable player. You tell him to avoid an INT at all cost and that's what he'll go out and do. Jefferson did exactly what he was coached to do, and the end result was a gunshy quarterback and offense that couldn't consistently move the football or score points. The fault there lies on the coaching staff. Just like a bad general, they were fighting the last war.

However, let's focus on the positives. First, there is the fact that Jefferson is coachable. Tell him X, he does X. But what I really like is his maturity. Jefferson takes responsibility and deflects blame from the much maligned offensive line. That's what leaders do. He knows he has to get rid of the football and he wants to do better. And he takes responsibility for the offense's failures.

Jefferson is still a work in progress, but I like the progression so far.

Ranaudo Named Collegiate Baseball's Preseason Player of the Year

Poseur — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:16:58 -0000

Ranaudo Named Collegiate Baseball's Preseason Player of the Year

Ranaudo hauls in a preseason award. Collegiate Baseball also named Blake Dean, Micah Gibbs, and Matty Ott to the 2nd team All American squad.

Preseason don't mean squat, but it's nice to haul in the early honors. This year's team is ranked #2 in the preseason, so expectations are still high at the Box.

Poseur Returns From Mouse Land

Poseur — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:02:06 -0000

Did you miss me? I just finished my one week scouting mission in Orlando (talk about bad timing for my vacation... in my defense, I scheduled it six months in advance with no knowledge that LSU would be in the ~~Tangerine~~ ~~Citrus~~ Capital One Bowl). The result? It's warm. There's a Mouse. And LSU fans outnumber PSU fans. (Best moment: the ride operator said "We are..." and someone replied "Tiger Bait!").

So let's see if I can weigh in on the huge news week I missed out on...

JEFFERSON'S COMMENTS. The guys over at Black Shoe Diaries had their panties in a bunch over Jefferson saying that LSU has fast players. For a school that wears black shoes for the reason that they will look slower, they seem awfully sensitive about the whole thing. And JJ wasn't really insulting them, he was saying that Big 10 schools are known for being physical and LSU can counteract that advantage with speed. It was about as innocuous of a statement as you could think of, really.

I don't really believe that one conference is faster than another. That's just blogosphere sabre rattling. And it's not like being fast makes you a great player. Trindon Holliday won the NCAA title in the 100 meters. He is the fastest player in college football. He's nowhere near the best. Xavier Carter is a professional track athlete and won so many events in college it was sort of absurd. He also was a marginal receiver. Bennie Brazell actually was in the Olympics, finishing 8th in the 110m hurdles. He was not a great receiver. Speed does not equal great. Though LSU really has had some of the faster players ever to don a football uniform.

Strangely enough, it is LSU's physicality that has been its calling card, not its speed. LSU's championship teams have been built on hitting teams really, really hard. So talking about Penn St being physical is actually a compliment. Physical, hard-hitting teams are what we like around these parts.

BARKSDALE'S TWEET. Memo to college athletes: don't blog. Don't tweet. Don't pass notes in class. It will always come back to bite you. I think LSU has acted appropriately in simply ignoring this whole thing and even defending Barksdale. He's from Michigan and it's Christmastime. Any 20-year-old kid will miss his family in that situation. I'm not seeing my mom this Christmas, and it makes me sad as well. Poor word choice by Barksdale, but I perfectly understand his emotions. Leave the kid alone.

COACHING CHANGES: No movement. Let the rumors continue.

UPCOMING: I have been hard at work for you, the ATVS reader. I have finished my highly technical ranking of the top 30 LSU athletes of the last decade. I have ranked LSU athletes of every sport of the LSU athletic golden age. Almost all of the top 30 were All-American, and I left out lots of other All-Americans. It's truly staggering the number of great athletes who have worn the purple and gold this decade. Feel free to send me your last ditch efforts to sway my opinion. The rankings are not yet set in stone and I really am leaving some greats on the outside looking in.

An Irresponsible Post About the Coaching Situation

Poseur — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:35:15 -0000

More photos » by Phelan M. Ebenhack - AP

"No, I have no idea who will be working for me next season, but I'm pretty sure someone is getting coal in their stocking. Why do you ask?"

Browse more photos »

I am not a journalist. I have no sources and I do no reporting. So if you don't like wild ass speculating, just skip on down to the next post. However, this is just my wild ass guess on what is happening to the coaching staff and who will be running the Tigers offense next season. It's an amalgamation of internet rumors and complete fabrication, but what the hey? You've been warned.

First off, let's review what we absolutely know. McCarthy and Porter are both out, under entirely different circumstances. This means the WR and RB coach jobs are officially open, though Wilson has been officially named the new RB coach.

On more hazy news, two separate news outlets have reported two different guys have been hired as the new WR coach: Billy Gonzales and Tyke Tolbert. Neither has been officially announced, but the Gonzales story was far better sourced and seems rock solid. Let's make the assumption that Gonzales is on the staff.

Now, let's try and sort through the rumors. Footballscoop, a website that is even more unreliable than we are, is reporting that OL coach Greg Studwara is going to join Porter's staff in Memphis as the OC. Our offensive line was a massive disappointment this season, but I'd hate for that to stain his entire career. He's been a good coach his entire career, he's entitled to a bad year. But it makes sense that Porter would take at least one guy he knows with him, so I'm going to believe this story, meaning we have another hole to fill.

It's no secret that I believe Crowton should be fired. Nothing personal, but if you're the OC of the 108^th ranked scoring offense at a BCS school, you get fired. That's how it works. If you run an offense this dysfunctional at any school, you deserve to get canned. Sorry.

Now, I have no idea who the new OL coach will be, but I have a hunch we have already hired a new OC. His name is either Gonzales or Tolbert. Now, some rumors have it that the deal with Tolbert has fallen through. This is certainly possible. He's a year or two away from an NFL pension, and who wants to leave money on the table? It's also a lateral move from WR to WR coach, only he's stepping down from the pros to college. So, if Tolbert is out, I understand.

However, it is also quite possible that Tolbert is still on board. LSU cannot officially announce it has hired an NFL coach until after the NFL season. Well, they could, but that would screw over Tolbert and put LSU on shaky ground with the NFL. Tolbert will be free from his contract in a few weeks and then can announce he has a new job (if he has it). From LSU's perspective, it cannot wait to get a WR coach or more importantly, a big recruiter which necessitated the Gonzales hire. Simply put, we couldn't wait.

However, this does not preclude hiring Tolbert AFTER the NFL season ends. The thing is, that means we have two WR coaches, which means one of them will get the promotion to OC. Both are fine candidates. Gonzales was the front runner for the Florida OC job after Mullen left and is probably making a lateral move because of the snub. Or he's moving to be the OC and it's not a lateral move. Tolbert is making a lateral move because he's an LSU alum. Or he's coming to be the OC. Or he's not coming at all and there really is a dispute over money.

I think it's that we had to get a recruiter in here now, so we hired Gonzales, but we still want Tolbert. Given his connection to the school, I think he will take the WR job in a few weeks, albeit with a pay bump, and Gonzales will take over as the OC, because I can't see why he would make a lateral move just out of spite.

Call it a hunch (well, because otherwise it's just a guess). But I think Crowton is out, seeing as his whole staff has just been gutted. I think Tolbert is still in the fold, we're just delaying the hire until after the NFL season. And I think we've already hired our new OC: Billy Gonzales. I'm probably wrong, but from reading the tea leaves, I am pretty excited about the staff changes so far.

Hang On a Sec

Poseur — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:19:24 -0000

Hang On a Sec

Now the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Florida WR coach Billy Gonzales has been hired by LSU as WR coach/passing game co-ordinator.* Seeing as it was already reported that Tolbert got the WR coach gig, things are a bit confusing right now. So it looks like I jumped the gun a bit. Who knows what the coaching situation is?

*Yeah, I have no idea what that is either

Tolbert Hired

Poseur — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:02:03 -0000

Tolbert Hired

That was quick. This means that the powers that be have been arranging for McCarthy to step down for some time now. They already had the replacement ready to go.

Absolutely terrific hire. Tolbert was seen as a big time recruiter, so he went to the NFL to work on his coaching bona fides. LSU reaps the benefits of the work he has put in to improve his skills. We now have another recruiting ace who is also a good coach with not only NFL experience, but success coaching in the NFL.

LSU to play Penn State in the Cap One

Poseur — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:29:26 -0000

LSU to play Penn State in the Cap One

It's official! Hell, check out all the bowls. I will, oddly enough, be in Disney World in a week, so I will scout the city out for the Tigers.

Thoughts On the Title Games

Poseur — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:42:10 -0000

On the one hand, it was a great weekend of football. Starting with Oregon-Oregon St on Thursday, college football finally gave us a terrific weekend of games. As a football fan, I should be happy. As an LSU fan, I'm disappointed by the result of the two marquee games.

I've always been sort of agnostic to Alabama. I enjoy Tuscaloosa and it's always been one of my favorite road trips. I admire Alabama's program and let's face it, they are one of the most successful programs in history. Sure, they may have a strong whiff of arrogance and not a little bit of corruption, but they have a pretty full trophy case. I've always wanted to beat Alabama, but more as a measuring stick than a matter of hatred.

Then, the Bama game happened and ever since, our little corner of the blogosphere has been overrun by Alabama trolls. I'm not talking about longtime commentators like Gerry Dorsey, who may be a bit of a stick in the mud, but he's always up for honest debate. I'm talking about the nonstop parade of trolls with nothing more intelligent to say then some variant of "BAMA RULZ! LSU SUX!"* And my hatred towards Bama sort of came to a head this season. We had more Bama trolls on here than Ole Miss fans after the Ole Miss game, which sort of speaks to the sheer level of trolling. Alabama is the first fanbase that has ever prompted this site to post a general warning to an entire team's fanbase.

*ED NOTE - If you are a troll and you have been banned from this site over the past month, I did it. That's right. Me. My email is at the bottom of the page, send me your hate mail. You suck, and I don't regret for a second banning any of you.

Which means I hate 2009 Alabama more than any team in the nation. More than Tennessee and Lane Kiffin's big mouth. More than the infuriating Rebels, who were overrated like I said in the preseason, but still beat us so I can't really talk smack about. More than Auburn, who just suck because they are Auburn.

But Alabama went out there and beat the snot out of Florida. They deserved the title, no ifs ands or buts. That was a thorough ass-kicking. Congratulations, Bama fan fans. You are champions, but it doesn't mean you still aren't douchebags.

But the game that really got my goat was Texas-Nebraska. I root for Nebraska in the sense that Husker fans have always been cool to LSU in Omaha and they have former LSU Defensive Co-ordinator Bo Pelini as their coach. I would've rooted for Nebraska against almost anyone in the Big 12.

I have my problems with Texas this year. Their OOC schedule is absolutely terrible, and they play in a conference that, through no fault of Texas, is probably the worst of the BCS conferences this season. Yet they get to go to the BCS conference game despite the fact TCU and Cincinnati both have looked better against schedules that may have been tougher. (Texas advantage in SOS over TCU is entirely because the dregs of their schedule are better than the dregs of TCU's schedule, which is no way to gauge a schedule). The BCS is grossly unfair and it's excluding teams on simply a guess.

The officiating in the game wasn't terrible, but it did seem every close call went to Texas. It wasn't simply missing calls, it was just giving the benefit of the doubt to Texas. The problem here is the idea of conference affiliated refs, raising the appearance of a vested interest of the conference to have one team win. I don't think they called a bad game, but things like the pass interference call were borderline calls that went Texas' way.

Here's where my LSU fandom comes in. The officials reviewed the last play of the Texas game, and put a second back on the clock. Hell, you KNEW they were gonna put a second back on the clock by the way the officials were reacting to the Huskers celebrating. I figure it takes a second for a scoreboard operator to stop the clock, and the ball went out of bounds at :01, which means that it was a perfectly reasonable for the clock to run out.

But my question is, where was the review in the LSU-Ole Miss game? Terrance Toliver was down with 3 seconds left, yet the clock ran to :01. I remember a little bit of kvetching from the Tiger faithful, but not a huge outcry (and certainly not like the Alabama game). Hey, the clock runs an extra second or two on almost every play. We're not going to review every one. It would kill the game.

Here's the rub, the officials absolutely screwed up in one of these two games. They cannot be right in both cases. Either the officials in LSU-OM screwed up in not reviewing the play and putting those 2 seconds back on the clock or the officials in the Big 12 title game screwed up by putting the second back. It's the same exact situation with completely opposite outcomes. One set of officials was wrong because they both can't be right. They have diametrically opposed outcomes from the same situation. They cannot both be right. All I will say, in one game, the conference had a vested interest in one team winning.

It's not impropriety, sometimes it's just the appearance of impropriety. Because I know a conference would never favor one team over another if it were in the conference's best interests. We know they are all paragons of virtue. I trust them completely, don't you?

Geaux Volleyball!

Poseur — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:36:17 -0000

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about LSU volleyball, or volleyball in general. But I do know that Britnee Cooper, Sam Dabbs, and Marina Skinner were all named first team SEC, with Cooper also being name the SEC Player of the Year. I know LSU won its first SEC title since 1991 under the leadership of SEC Coach of the Year, Fran Flory. I also know that LSU is the #15 national seed and will host a regional, starting tonight.

Tulane is no pushover. First off, its Tulane, and the Greenies live to ruin things for LSU. That's all Tulane aspires to. Also, LSU and Tulane have split their season series this year, so LSU can waltz in and think they are gonna blow out the Greenies. We'll worry about Arizona and Texas A&M only if we get past the first round. Survive and advance and all that.

Honestly, it's a pretty horrible draw. If LSU makes it through their region, which seems pretty good but I've already revealed I know next to nothing about volleyball, probably #2 Texas lies in wait. And the Lady Horns are pretty darn awesome.

The important thing is to go out and support the Tigers. Football's over, people, and we have a title winning team still playing in the postseason. Also, Cooper can claim to be one of the all-time Tiger greats in any sport, and this is your last chance to see her (and let's face it, probably the first time you will). Geaux Tigers!

Back From the Ranch

Poseur — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:38:38 -0000

More photos » by Bill Haber - AP

He's the coach. Deal. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

Browse more photos »

I have been gloriously cut off from the world since Wednesday, chilling out at my girlfriend's ranch in the hills of Texas. We had a TV, so I watched the game, but I have been almost competely out of the loop for a week. Which has given me a chance to take a step back from the team and the season.

Since I've gotten back home, I've done a cursory search online to take the temperature of the fanbase. As a group, we are, frankly put, delusional. Has this season been frustrating? Absolutely. But we set the bar at 9-3 and here we are, at 9-3. Almost every criticism of Miles starts with some variation of this phrase, "Do not pay attention to the record." Ummmm.... why the hell not? If we don't judge coaches on wins and losses, what do we judge them on? Their press conferences? Graduation rate? Hat size?

LSU went 5-3 in the SEC this year, which is good but not outstanding. Once again, Alabama has gone 8-0 in the SEC. And that is the issue. LSU has gone from the dominant power in the West to clearly the second banana. The question is: Is this condition permanent or is it just these past two seasons? Hell, I don't know.

But here's what kills me. If LSU runs off a coach for going 9-3, two years removed from a national title, what coach do you think LSU will then be able to attract? This is where the delusion comes in. Coaches may be an egotistical and narcissistic lot, but this fanbase screams Unreasonable Expectations. One bad year and you're gone. Oh, and the crowd support will suck. Where were all of the fans going in the second half of that game?

LSU fans seem to be operating on the assumption that if we fire Les Miles, Brian Kelly will be hired the next day. Do I think Kelly is a better coach than Miles? Yes, I do. I think Brian Kelly is a superstar. Do I think he's sitting by the phone, waiting for LSU to call? No, I don't.

Miles is not the best coach in the country. However, if LSU fires him, I don't see any realistic options who are better. Miles is not perfect, but who is? Show me a team this year outside of the undefeated teams which did not drop a game they shouldn't have lost? If we're gonna crucify Miles for the Ole Miss game, then there are almost no coaches who would survive such scrutiny.

All of that said, had LSU lost to Arkansas, Miles should have gotten the axe. That's how tough the coaching game can be. It's about wins and losses, and 3-5 followed by 4-4 wouldn't have cut it, particularly with two straight late season collapses. But he avoided the loss and probably saved his job for another year. 5-3 means he can argue last year was a fluke.

But the seat is most definitely hot now. If LSU does not make the SEC Championship Game next year, the calls for Miles' head will get even louder. LSU expects to contend for titles, and Miles is paid to win them. That's the standard. It doesn't make it right, but that's just the way the coaching carousel goes.

But there's absolutely no guarantee that some mythical Other Guy will automatically be better. Just remember that.

And in the rush to condemn Miles, people forget the things that he does well. This team did not give up on him. He's loyal to his players. He's a great recruiter. He's a good person. The way he guided the team through the hurricanes speaks highly of his character. He learns from his mistakes, which shows his pragmatic nature. He's not afraid of being the lightning rod of criticism.

I'm still happy with the Miles Era. A New Years Day Bowl is nothing to be unhappy with. We've just been so spoiled by the recent run of success. And I will humbly submit one small piece of evidence that Miles is a good game day coach: LSU has been consistently outgained all season long, yet we keep winning. After awhile, it stps being luck and it maybe, just maybe, has something to do with the guy on the sideline.