I made the trip down from Arkansas this weekend to witness that disheartening performance firsthand. After hearing horror stories of “the worst fans in the SEC” for years, I prepared myself accordingly for an away game at LSU. Granted it was an early kickoff, but the fans weren’t THAT bad. My buddy, his wife, and I sat behind the South endzone, and there were maybe 3-4 other AU fans anywhere nearby. We were heckled fairly badly from the start but nothing offensive, just obnoxious. We mostly smiled and laughed at the “grown men” spouting their tasteless trash.
A couple quick takeaways: First one for the defense is something @JayGTate touched on in his post yesterday. The lack of energy / joy / desire seen from our defensive squad beginning with the first snap of the game was alarming. This is much more readily apparent sitting close to the field than it is on TV especially during time outs and commercial breaks. Lethargic is the word that comes to mind. From my angle in the endzone, it was easy to see the size of the hole that Fournette ran through on that first play from scrimmage. Wow. From then on our guys for the most part looked deflated, disinterested, and lost.There were exceptions, but I don’t recall having much to cheer for on defense all afternoon. LSU fans were laughing at our inadequacies and reveling in the Fournette show.
On offense, JJ’s inconsistency killed any chance we had for continuity and momentum. There were times I recall standing up in the middle of all the LSU fans with my hands in the air like, “Whha??? How is that possible?” (See JJ’s backwards pass and multiple passes straight into Les’ grass). Not sure if it's been discussed here, but LSU looked to be blatantly offsides on JJs fumble. Home crowd agreed...then again we were on the opposite side of the stadium. Stanton Truitt and Kerryon Johnson both looked like play makers…no secret here. Roc looked really solid on a couple of his carries. I'll give credit to JJ and the O Line for a long TD run after halftime.
Kevin Phillips was straight up blasting punts. I won’t say coverage was great because I recall one big punt that went into the endzone because our guys were lost, and another was only effective because it downed itself. So I guess we’ve got that going for us.
Nothing really Earth shattering here. My hosts in Baton Rouge were extremely gracious and hospitable, so I saw both ends of the spectrum so to speak. I had the pleasure of drinking bottles of wine older than myself and watching Bama lose poolside, so that was a win. Anywho, here's to hoping for significant improvement in all facets of our game (except punting). War Eagle!
A couple quick takeaways: First one for the defense is something @JayGTate touched on in his post yesterday. The lack of energy / joy / desire seen from our defensive squad beginning with the first snap of the game was alarming. This is much more readily apparent sitting close to the field than it is on TV especially during time outs and commercial breaks. Lethargic is the word that comes to mind. From my angle in the endzone, it was easy to see the size of the hole that Fournette ran through on that first play from scrimmage. Wow. From then on our guys for the most part looked deflated, disinterested, and lost.There were exceptions, but I don’t recall having much to cheer for on defense all afternoon. LSU fans were laughing at our inadequacies and reveling in the Fournette show.
On offense, JJ’s inconsistency killed any chance we had for continuity and momentum. There were times I recall standing up in the middle of all the LSU fans with my hands in the air like, “Whha??? How is that possible?” (See JJ’s backwards pass and multiple passes straight into Les’ grass). Not sure if it's been discussed here, but LSU looked to be blatantly offsides on JJs fumble. Home crowd agreed...then again we were on the opposite side of the stadium. Stanton Truitt and Kerryon Johnson both looked like play makers…no secret here. Roc looked really solid on a couple of his carries. I'll give credit to JJ and the O Line for a long TD run after halftime.
Kevin Phillips was straight up blasting punts. I won’t say coverage was great because I recall one big punt that went into the endzone because our guys were lost, and another was only effective because it downed itself. So I guess we’ve got that going for us.
Nothing really Earth shattering here. My hosts in Baton Rouge were extremely gracious and hospitable, so I saw both ends of the spectrum so to speak. I had the pleasure of drinking bottles of wine older than myself and watching Bama lose poolside, so that was a win. Anywho, here's to hoping for significant improvement in all facets of our game (except punting). War Eagle!
