Coach V's Grades - LSU

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We didn’t execute the assignments we were assigned—across the board. Football players are supposed to make plays regardless of degree of difficulty. Since we gave up 45 points and over 500 yards it’s obvious our troopers didn’t produce many positive results in that game plan. We scored 38 with 500 yards—you should (must) win these games. We weren’t out talented. We were outcoached plain and simple.

We had another game of too many missed tackles and to put it mildly we didn’t cover many receivers despite blitzing around 80% of the defensive plays. We attempted to make them throw quickly (destroy timing) and made up for that by giving ample cushion to make throw and catch a simple procedure. I like to refer to our schemes as high risk, low reward. I’m beginning to wonder if we understand our spread schemes are playing right into our opponents hands?

Here are the grades:

3—Green—Fail

4—Cook—Fail

7—Sterns—Pass

13—Tillman—Fail

15—Brown—Pass

19—Jones—Pass

23—McCulloch—Pass

25—Foster—Pass

29—Thompson—Fail

31—Overshown—Pass

32—Roach—Pass+

38—Boyce—Fail

40—Adeoye—Fail

42—Bimage—Pass

46—Ossai—Pass+

49—Graham—Fail

91—Chisholm—Pass

93—Sweat—Pass

98—Ojomo—Pass

99—Coburn—Pass

Roach (32) is a warrior and probably best pass rusher despite never coming off the edge.

Ossai (46) gets a ton of mileage out of his minimum experience at ILB. He is also one of our two best pass rushers in the front—we would be better off bringing Joseph off the edge rather than straight into the OL.

Brown (15) is a much better play maker aligned closer to the LOS. Why did we him back away from the immediate action?

Green (3) needs a week of positive reinforcement. Add (38) Boyce. Add Cook (4). Add (29) Thompson.

Sterns (7), Jones (19), and Foster (25) need to take more risks and make plays on the ball instead of tackling after the catch. If it’s going to be a high scoring game anyway—let’s get into the fight with both feet.

Bimage (42), Chislohm (91), and Sweat (93) all showed very active while making plays at the LOS.

Graham (49) lost the LOS and was driven across the gap on stunts too often.

Ojomo (98) is by far the quickest NT and penetration disrupt—he just needs to make something happen once he penetrates.

McCulloch (23) has been effective for the most part but still misses too many tackles. He has been a pleasant surprise—playing much like his high school video told us he would.

We blitzed a ton and made very few big plays considering the ratio of hits vs. misses. Since our normal blitzers (LB’s and DB’s) come from so many different alignments and angles I often wonder how much practice time is devoted to repping and recognizing assignments vs. how much practice time is spent improving real game techniques. We look pretty convincing during our shifting into the various assaults while not so much actually applying coverage techniques complete with actual tackles.

We have a ton of soul searching to do. Players and coaches alike.

500 total yards and 38 points against a very solid defense should be enough to win most games but then this wasn’t most games. Once you dismiss the fact that we went pointless on two separate 4 play GL efforts this game takes on a very ugly meaning. There were very few offensive players that didn’t grade out on the positive side—the same can’t be said for our GL play-caller. Here are the grades:

1—Burt—Fail

2—Johnson—Pass+

6—Duvernay—Pass+

9—Johnson—Pass

11—Ehlinger—Pass

13—Eagles—Pass+

16—Smith—Pass+

26—Ingram—Pass

52—Cosmi—Pass+

56—Shackelford—Pass+

68—Kerstetter—Pass

73—Braun—Pass

75—Angilau—Pass+

80—Brewer—Pass

81—Leitao—Pass

85—Epps—Fail

We had a pretty clean game with a minimum of bad plays. Two holds on the same play nullified a big gain and a couple of other holds were called but for over 50 pass calls we kept Sam (11) upright for the most part.

Sam (11) was a hair off target on several first half arrows but corrected that for the second 30 minutes.

Duvernay (6) had another great game. We just needed to remember he is good to throw to in the first half also—he catches everything.

Eagles (13) had another strong game with yet another long range td catch.

Johnson (2) ran extremely tough and had a least six big time blocks in pass pro/leads. He may make an even better RB than QB in the long run—he will exciting to watch regardless of where we play him.

Smith (16) has been consistent both games—nice td reception down the seam. He will be special.

Sam Cosmi (52) showed once again why he is one of our premier players. Yep, he had one hold on a speed rush but he remains money in the bank in a very difficult position on this offense.

Shack (56) is a rock. Player.

Braun (73) had his hands full but held leverage well in pass pro. He is lethal on pulls.

(While I’m at this point I want to point out our two worst pass protections were beaten by the age old DE-DT twist where the DT slants outside and the DE loops around to the inside. All the fancy ass blitzes we saw and ran ourselves weren’t as effective as the simple end-tackle twist. Go figure—old time ball still produces in this high tech space age.)

Angilau (75) is becoming a quality asset. He might be or best drive blocker and his pass pro is really getting better.

Kerstetter (68) keeps showing improvement. He held up very well considering the competition—degree of difficulty considered.

Brewer (80) was steady and made one good catch—he just lacks brutal in his blocking efforts. He does know who to block.

Ingram (26) didn’t look fully healthy after the first drive.

Sometimes we second guess and that’s our fan right. My “wish” on offense is for the GL play calling. I see a huge upside (since we failed on eight straight attempts) in formation 5 wide (empty) and running QB draw. We have five blocked by alignment (DB’s) which leaves our OL (5) plus Sam against their six. I like those odds considering our personnel. I know I wouldn’t care to defend that play against that personnel group.

Mend up and get back on track—we have a conference left to win.