I say go tempo and get those big guys tired. When they send the replacements in run Ingram and Whittington down their throats
LSU scouting report
- Thread starter clob94
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I say go tempo and get those big guys tired. When they send the replacements in run Ingram and Whittington down their throats
This is from Surly. This guy did an excellent breakdown of LSU and Texas. The SEC seems to be a conference stuck in time. They run archaic schemes compared to the b12 and others.
Contrary to popular belief, LSU is not a great running team. They’re not even that good a running team. They were quite average in 2018 with 4.0 YPC (recall UGa was 6.1 YPC). Their yards per attempt ranked #91 in the country. Taking out sacks, they rushed for 4.6 YPC against the standard 3 cupcake schedule and none of their RBs came close to averaging 5 yds per carry (again both of UGa’s were at 6.5 YPC going into the Sugar Bowl). I suspect many people only saw the LSU-Georgia game and are extrapolating from that season best performance fueled by 4 UGa turnovers.
The design of the offense is very conservative, even more so than Georgia. LSU tries to protect the ball, control field position and wear down the defense but doesn’t score much. 20 points or less was typical against better defenses unless they got multiple turnovers or big special teams plays. 60/40 is their run-pass ratio with very heavy tendency to run between the tackles. Their top returning back Edwards-Helaire averaged 4.5 YPC in 2018. They have some talented youngsters incoming but there’s no way to assess how much impact they might have in game 2 of their career.
Quarterback
As with UGa the play calling tends towards run, run, deep shot with WR screens and hitches thrown in occasionally. But LSU has a much less accurate passer than Fromm. Joe Burrow completed 57.8% of his passes for 7.7 YPA. The main things in his favor are that he’s tough so he’s less likely to get rattled and he’s a pretty good runner. 6.3 YPC (sacks removed) is pretty darn good and higher than Sam’s. As a runner LSU’s QB is equivalent to Baylor’s Charlie Brewer or ISU’s Brock Purdy.
As a passer Burrow would be one of the worst quarterbacks in the Big XII. If you want to see a statistical comparison of Burrow and Sam Ehlinger I did one in January here:
I started to respond to @Kyrie Eleison in another thread where he was talking up Joe Burrow. Before realizing it, I'd done a complete statistical comparison to Sam.
Despite my best intentions to wait for the fall to do a writeup gonna leave it here instead of sitting on it for 7 months. Significant difference are highlighted.
Sam Ehlinger (Joe Burrow)
3,292 yds (2,894) -398 yds
64.7% completions (57.8%) -6.9%
7.7 yds PA (7.6 YPA) -0.1
25 TDs (16) -9 TDs
5.9% TD ratio (4.2%) -1.7% TD ratio
6 INTs (5) -1 INT
1.41% INT ratio (1.32%) -0.09% INT ratio
26 sacks (35) +9 sacks
5.76% sack ratio (8.46%) +2.70% sack ratio
146.8 QBR (133.2) -13.6 QBR
678 rushing yds (589) -89 yds - sacks excluded
4.9 YPC (6.3) +1.4 YPC
16 rush TDs (7) -9 TDs
Burrow has no significant advantage over Sam in any passing category. Sam has large advantages in completion percentage, passing TDs, TD ratio, sacks, sack ratio and QBR. Burrow has a better per carry average running the ball. this is offset by Sam's greater scoring ability and bigger threat in short yardage generally.
In most passing stats, Burrow is below average even in the SEC - which we've seen doesn't really challenge QBs to make tough reads. He's #12 of 14 in pass efficiency, #8 in YPA, #11 in completion % and #10 in TDs passing. Joe Burrow does 2 things very well: ball security and situational running. Outside of that, he's quite average.
Burrow is a gritty dual-threat guy who's enough of a passer you can't totally load up against the run. Unlike Jake Fromm, he's mobile and doesn't lose a lot of accuracy when forced to throw in the move. Joe Burrow is a good fit for LSU's offense but he's no Sam Ehlinger.
Receivers
Burrow will have some athletic WRs to throw to; Jefferson at the X position is a tough match up but again like Georgia they don’t have anything equal to what Texas sees weekly in the Big XII at wideout. That is especially true in terms of reliability and diagnosing the defense.
The receiver corps looks impressive on paper but they are much better athletes than they are pass catchers. They have more size than Georgia (6’6”, 6’4”, 6’2”, 6’1 and 5’ll” coming back in 2019) but less speed and quickness though still quite good for their size. They also aren’t great route runners and had a lot of drops last season. Soph year John Burt is a pretty good comp for much of LSU’s WR unit. Expect some spectacular catches combined with even more drops and poorly run routes.
Line
The O-Line is enormous but a bit heavy footed. Projected starters based on the spring game are #68 Charles at LT (305 lbs), #72 Magee LG (335), #79 Cushenberry C (309), #68 Lewis RG (322) and #76 Deculus RT (321). Charles is solid but Deculus looks particularly vulnerable. He’s an OG playing out of position and he got burned regularly by speed rushers. That is really a bad situation against defenses that like to bring pressure from the outside. He’s going to be lined up against Ossai quite a bit and things could get ugly unless LSU keeps a TE in to help Deculus pass protect. The Guards are slow but powerful. They remind me a lot of Vahe – better run blockers than pass protectors but sometimes give up penetration into the backfield. Watch some games and you’ll see that there is definitely more than a little bit of Fatball™ being played in Baton Rouge.
The O-Line can make crushing run blocks at times but they also give up an inordinate number of negative plays to opposing defenses. They gave up 35 sacks in 2018, which is big considering the low number of pass attempts. The sack ratio of almost 9.0% is appallingly high and one will usually terminate a drive. They also gave up a total of 89 TFLs. That was a problem for an offense that relies on running the ball and a negative play is usually a drive killer. The 54 non-sack TFLs represent a loss on almost 10% of LSU’s rush attempts. There is a good reason their offense is not very efficient.
Coaching and Summary
The offensive play calling tends to stick stubbornly with the run even when it’s not appropriate. LSU will often continue to run into stacked fronts and this can be seen in their bowl game. They faced one of the worst rushing defenses in the country - #117 UCF. The Knights loaded the box and played man-free coverage behind it. That meant 1 more defender than the offense could block. The result was pretty predictable – 3.1 YPC for LSU and they ran the ball 52 times into a brick wall. When Burrow threw the ball he did pretty well since the coverage was predictable and he could wait for receivers to come open because the defense was prioritizing stopping the run over pass rushing. Once the LSU coaches saw this happening they should have thrown the ball until UCF backed out and pulled a player out of the box and into coverage.
Orlando has always schemed well against conventional teams that like to run the ball and he’s great at scheming extra players into the box. How will LSU respond when they line up in 11 personnel and see a 3-2 front with and NB overhang defender inside shade over the slot and a box safety 7 yds off the ball? Do they treat that as 5 box defenders or 7? USC couldn’t solve it and neither could Georgia. One additional factor is that LSU returns a lot from last year’s quality squad. But I do not expect LSU’s offense to be a big problem unless Texas turns the ball over or gives up big plays in the kicking game. If that happens enough times they can play with a lead and grind the defense down eventually. If not I’ve got them down for 13-17 points.
Burrow protects the ball pretty well with only 5 INTs to go with his 16 TD last season. Put him in a hole and under pressure and that’s when the mistakes happen so getting a lead and forcing them to play catch up is important.
Contrary to popular belief, LSU is not a great running team. They’re not even that good a running team. They were quite average in 2018 with 4.0 YPC (recall UGa was 6.1 YPC). Their yards per attempt ranked #91 in the country. Taking out sacks, they rushed for 4.6 YPC against the standard 3 cupcake schedule and none of their RBs came close to averaging 5 yds per carry (again both of UGa’s were at 6.5 YPC going into the Sugar Bowl). I suspect many people only saw the LSU-Georgia game and are extrapolating from that season best performance fueled by 4 UGa turnovers.
The design of the offense is very conservative, even more so than Georgia. LSU tries to protect the ball, control field position and wear down the defense but doesn’t score much. 20 points or less was typical against better defenses unless they got multiple turnovers or big special teams plays. 60/40 is their run-pass ratio with very heavy tendency to run between the tackles. Their top returning back Edwards-Helaire averaged 4.5 YPC in 2018. They have some talented youngsters incoming but there’s no way to assess how much impact they might have in game 2 of their career.
Quarterback
As with UGa the play calling tends towards run, run, deep shot with WR screens and hitches thrown in occasionally. But LSU has a much less accurate passer than Fromm. Joe Burrow completed 57.8% of his passes for 7.7 YPA. The main things in his favor are that he’s tough so he’s less likely to get rattled and he’s a pretty good runner. 6.3 YPC (sacks removed) is pretty darn good and higher than Sam’s. As a runner LSU’s QB is equivalent to Baylor’s Charlie Brewer or ISU’s Brock Purdy.
As a passer Burrow would be one of the worst quarterbacks in the Big XII. If you want to see a statistical comparison of Burrow and Sam Ehlinger I did one in January here:
I started to respond to @Kyrie Eleison in another thread where he was talking up Joe Burrow. Before realizing it, I'd done a complete statistical comparison to Sam.
Despite my best intentions to wait for the fall to do a writeup gonna leave it here instead of sitting on it for 7 months. Significant difference are highlighted.
Sam Ehlinger (Joe Burrow)
3,292 yds (2,894) -398 yds
64.7% completions (57.8%) -6.9%
7.7 yds PA (7.6 YPA) -0.1
25 TDs (16) -9 TDs
5.9% TD ratio (4.2%) -1.7% TD ratio
6 INTs (5) -1 INT
1.41% INT ratio (1.32%) -0.09% INT ratio
26 sacks (35) +9 sacks
5.76% sack ratio (8.46%) +2.70% sack ratio
146.8 QBR (133.2) -13.6 QBR
678 rushing yds (589) -89 yds - sacks excluded
4.9 YPC (6.3) +1.4 YPC
16 rush TDs (7) -9 TDs
Burrow has no significant advantage over Sam in any passing category. Sam has large advantages in completion percentage, passing TDs, TD ratio, sacks, sack ratio and QBR. Burrow has a better per carry average running the ball. this is offset by Sam's greater scoring ability and bigger threat in short yardage generally.
In most passing stats, Burrow is below average even in the SEC - which we've seen doesn't really challenge QBs to make tough reads. He's #12 of 14 in pass efficiency, #8 in YPA, #11 in completion % and #10 in TDs passing. Joe Burrow does 2 things very well: ball security and situational running. Outside of that, he's quite average.
Burrow is a gritty dual-threat guy who's enough of a passer you can't totally load up against the run. Unlike Jake Fromm, he's mobile and doesn't lose a lot of accuracy when forced to throw in the move. Joe Burrow is a good fit for LSU's offense but he's no Sam Ehlinger.
Receivers
Burrow will have some athletic WRs to throw to; Jefferson at the X position is a tough match up but again like Georgia they don’t have anything equal to what Texas sees weekly in the Big XII at wideout. That is especially true in terms of reliability and diagnosing the defense.
The receiver corps looks impressive on paper but they are much better athletes than they are pass catchers. They have more size than Georgia (6’6”, 6’4”, 6’2”, 6’1 and 5’ll” coming back in 2019) but less speed and quickness though still quite good for their size. They also aren’t great route runners and had a lot of drops last season. Soph year John Burt is a pretty good comp for much of LSU’s WR unit. Expect some spectacular catches combined with even more drops and poorly run routes.
Line
The O-Line is enormous but a bit heavy footed. Projected starters based on the spring game are #68 Charles at LT (305 lbs), #72 Magee LG (335), #79 Cushenberry C (309), #68 Lewis RG (322) and #76 Deculus RT (321). Charles is solid but Deculus looks particularly vulnerable. He’s an OG playing out of position and he got burned regularly by speed rushers. That is really a bad situation against defenses that like to bring pressure from the outside. He’s going to be lined up against Ossai quite a bit and things could get ugly unless LSU keeps a TE in to help Deculus pass protect. The Guards are slow but powerful. They remind me a lot of Vahe – better run blockers than pass protectors but sometimes give up penetration into the backfield. Watch some games and you’ll see that there is definitely more than a little bit of Fatball™ being played in Baton Rouge.
The O-Line can make crushing run blocks at times but they also give up an inordinate number of negative plays to opposing defenses. They gave up 35 sacks in 2018, which is big considering the low number of pass attempts. The sack ratio of almost 9.0% is appallingly high and one will usually terminate a drive. They also gave up a total of 89 TFLs. That was a problem for an offense that relies on running the ball and a negative play is usually a drive killer. The 54 non-sack TFLs represent a loss on almost 10% of LSU’s rush attempts. There is a good reason their offense is not very efficient.
Coaching and Summary
The offensive play calling tends to stick stubbornly with the run even when it’s not appropriate. LSU will often continue to run into stacked fronts and this can be seen in their bowl game. They faced one of the worst rushing defenses in the country - #117 UCF. The Knights loaded the box and played man-free coverage behind it. That meant 1 more defender than the offense could block. The result was pretty predictable – 3.1 YPC for LSU and they ran the ball 52 times into a brick wall. When Burrow threw the ball he did pretty well since the coverage was predictable and he could wait for receivers to come open because the defense was prioritizing stopping the run over pass rushing. Once the LSU coaches saw this happening they should have thrown the ball until UCF backed out and pulled a player out of the box and into coverage.
Orlando has always schemed well against conventional teams that like to run the ball and he’s great at scheming extra players into the box. How will LSU respond when they line up in 11 personnel and see a 3-2 front with and NB overhang defender inside shade over the slot and a box safety 7 yds off the ball? Do they treat that as 5 box defenders or 7? USC couldn’t solve it and neither could Georgia. One additional factor is that LSU returns a lot from last year’s quality squad. But I do not expect LSU’s offense to be a big problem unless Texas turns the ball over or gives up big plays in the kicking game. If that happens enough times they can play with a lead and grind the defense down eventually. If not I’ve got them down for 13-17 points.
Burrow protects the ball pretty well with only 5 INTs to go with his 16 TD last season. Put him in a hole and under pressure and that’s when the mistakes happen so getting a lead and forcing them to play catch up is important.
Sam’s longer outside shots to Johnson & LJH boosted his long range average, but completions like that don’t rip the top off of a secondary. Deep sideline shots provide only marginal yards after catch, but they don’t blow the top off of a defense and back safeties further from the LOS. Sam needs to show he can hit our fast guys down the middle too.
LSU doesn’t have the offense to score more than 21pts on you max. LSU has not won the big game Non Conf or Sec on a reg basis. Get ahead and they can’t play catch up. No turnovers and get a couple you win 28-14 ish. WS
I traveled recently to LSU country. All the talk was about their new offense installed by the former passing game coordinator from the Saints (name escapes me). His whole goal is to get the ball out of the QB's hands in 3 seconds. this would negate some of the 35 sacs from last year. The word is they will throw more this year. It seems very few of the analysis I see takes this new offense into account. They all base their analysis on last year's team. I do believe we see this type offense in the Big 12 year in and year out. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I don't see anybody blowing anybody away. Were not built that way and historically they haven't played that way.
I don't see anybody blowing anybody away. Were not built that way and historically they haven't played that way.
Let's beat La Tech first. I believe they have a veteran QB who can throw. La Tech may be a bigger threat.
Things about this game that I am certain of. Our coach is better than theirs. And our qb is still better than theirs.
Our coach has never been fired theirs has. How can anyone not favor TX in this matchup?
As far as this alleged superstar qb that LSU has. They said the same thing about Jake Fromm and we all saw how that turned out.
The game is in Austin
Our coach has never been fired theirs has. How can anyone not favor TX in this matchup?
As far as this alleged superstar qb that LSU has. They said the same thing about Jake Fromm and we all saw how that turned out.
The game is in Austin
exactly...no turnovers is the key
two posts since 2001?....that isn't right is it?.....don't i remember you from the sooner board at least 15 years ago?
i posted there under another handle [when i wasn't banned]
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