Let's look at this one at a time.
Gameday motherfucka...Knubb, we talked about this, but the OL play is going to be the most important thing to take from this game. This is basically a 1 game audition for Williford Branch and Faulk to be the replacement to Will Blackwell on the line. I like the idea you mentioned of putting Faulk at RT, I know Faulk will be a stud if you give him time. But I'm intrigued by the size of Williford and want to see him play a lot. He could be our new House Johnson. We've been lacking in physicality up front ever since we lost Big Herm. If he plays well enough to beat out Faulk, that's a tremendous sign for the future of our line.
Williford gets an incomplete. He held his own blocking save for a blown stunt pickup in the first half. He also had a penalty, but all in all looked ok. I didn't see Faulk play, did he?
- Consistent DL play. Nevis stuffed UNC's run game (24 yards total for the Heels) but our young ends need to get a good pass rush on every down. They had a few flashes of greatness but in the second half we couldn't get any pressure.
These guys get an A+. They combined for 6 sacks, led by Big Drake Nevis with 2.5 sacks. Nevis is the real deal. Mingo, Adams and Montgomery were all over the place as well. Great defensive effort from the front 4.
- Which freshman DBs stay in the rotation this week and which get put back in the garage. Hoping to see more of Mathieu and Reid.
Reid had a great hit on special teams and Mathieu was out there quite a bit on D. Loston got the start as well. All in all I give the DB's a B+.
Didn't see him til the very end, but at least we did see some freshmen tote the rock and do it well. Alfred Blue looked very good. Interesting that he played over Ford but I guess that's not a bad thing.
Better ball control, whether it's Ridley, Murphy or MFF, I want to see us control the clock. NO TURNOVERS WHATSOEVER.
Ridley came to play tonight. He gets the game ball Blue and Ware looked great as well. Backs get an A+. Curious about not seeing Ford earlier but it's a good problem to have with so many talented frosh. Reminds me of the 03 team with Alley, JV and Barrington.
We failed in my turnovers mission thanks to a poor throw into the end zone by JJ. I was pretty unhappy with his first half (how could you not be unhappy with 3/12?) but I think he played pretty well in the second half. He got the chains moving a bit and completed 4 or 5 passes in a row; he just made one throw he shouldn't have. Gotta cut that out. B- for the offense as a whole, C- for JJ.
Can't wait to see how we manage our return game for obvious reasons. Will we let PP7 loose again? Will we rotate in Randle if Peterson gets tired? Or will we just say fuck it, and release the Kraken that is Russell Shepard?
Credit goes to Vandy for some good directional punting. Would still like to see Shep get his chance but we have a bevy of options here. Ware could probably return kicks in a pinch as well. Return game gets a C- tonight.
Final score, 27-3. Pretty spotty play from Jordan Jefferson, but there were plenty of bright spots tonight overall. I can't complain about 200 yards on the ground and less than 200 yards of yards allowed.
Run the ball and stop the run, that's LSU football. We played that tonight and I'm glad to see it. Also glad we stepped on the gas at the end and pulled away. It would've been easy to wait things out for a 13-3 or 20-3 victory but we pounded away and put the game to bed ourselves.
Great victory today, with the only detraction being the JJ INT in the red zone and some shoddy first half offense. Final grade is a B+.
