Defense:

1) AWESOME! What else can you say. That was a very good and balanced Auburn offense, that was playing at home, with everything to play for, and we stuffed them all game. Yes, Auburn made some adjustments to their play calling after the first quarter that had some results, but you can't argue with only giving up 7 points. That should be enough to win any ball game, whether its at home or on the road. In my mind, it's becoming more clear who the best coach on this staff (including Miles in the discussion as well) is. Bo Pellini. We could lose Fisher and find another one to replace him. We could lose Miles and find another head coach to replace him. It would be very difficult to replace Pellini. He's not irreplaceable, but he's the most important coach on this staff. His defenses are every bit as good as Nick Saban's were. And that comment isn't a knock on Miles or Fisher. I'm not on the bash Miles bandwagon (this year). Let's give the guy (Miles) some breathing room. See how the season plays out. Obviously we learned from last year that you can't hang a coaching staff after only 3 games. There is really no need to break down the defense any more. All areas excelled and played lights out. Whether it was the DL, LB, or DB's; it was a great performance.

Offense (#2 and #3 are obviously tied together):

1) Game plan: I said going into this game, that if I saw a lot of I-formation out of LSU's offense, that we would be playing into the hands of Auburns defense, and making it easier for them to defense our offense. The reason for this is because the obviously most talented part of our offense is our WR depth. There isn't a team in the country that is deep enough at the CB position to adequately defend against LSU's 4 WR sets with Bowe, Davis, Doucet, Lafell. What I saw on Saturday was an LSU coaching staff (offensive and probably the HC) that was so afraid of Muschamp and his attacking style defense that they developed a game plan that centered around countering Auburn's defense, as opposed to attacking it. The only mismatch we had going into this game was at WR. We didn't employ it. Instead we used way too much I-formation and some funky bunch formation with 2 WR's and a FB lined up on either OT. It was ineffective, and the staff did not recognize this and make any adjustments at halftime. So, point 1 is that the LSU offensive coaching staff gets a D for their conservative game plan that failed to take advantage of our teams strength on offense. It's very clear to me that this offense should resemble more closely that of 2001 and not 2003. We do not have the running game that powered the 2003 offense this year. What we do have is a very similar to 2001. Russell should be in the shotgun more, earlier in the game, and we should be using 3 and 4 WR's more than we use the I-formation or some variation of it with the FB in the game. In fact, if you look at the statistics of the running game, we ran the best out of the 1 back set with the field spread out with our 3 or 4 WR sets on Saturday. Not in the I-formation. So, if the coaching staff wants to improve the running game, they may want to start by changing the primary formations that we are running out of. We did this effectively in 2001 (run out of the spread formation and pass to set up the run) and Jimbo has shown in the past that he is willing to adjust his philosophy to fit his talent. If we don't see that change this year, you have to look squarely at Miles for the reason.

"LSU picked up 13 yards on three rushes when it had three wide receivers and one back in the game." "In the I-formation, LSU gained eight yards on ten attempts."

2) Running Game: The stats in the running game are completely unacceptable, and are the biggest reason our offense sputtered. Without any semblance of a running game, the Auburn defense was able to tee off on the QB and play coverage down the field. I think it's very apparent that Alley Broussard has not come back yet from his major knee injury. To complicate matters he is overweight. We didn't see it in the first two games, but against a top SEC defense, his lack of explosiveness was exposed. It should also be very clear to LSU fans, the coaching staff, etc…that Justin Vincent will never get back to his 2003 form. He looks slow and indecisive. Against top SEC defenses, he is not going to make enough plays to help control a game. He should be the 3rd of 4th option off the bench. Not the first. Jacob Hester. Even I began to drink the Kool-Aid about this guy after the first two games. But, I think it should be apparent to everyone after this game that he needs to be a FB and not a TB. What he did against Miami is coming into a little clearer focus. Miami is in a tailspin. He is a great H-back, FB type that you can use in different sets, but if I see him line up at TB in the I-formation again this year, I'll pull my hair out. That was brutal. You don't have to look any further than the 2003 season to see that sometimes taking a risk on a freshman RB can pay off for you. I think it's time for Miles and Jimbo to see if Keiland or Charles can carry the load. The next two games give you a perfect opportunity to find this out before your next big game at Florida. It's very difficult for a coaching staff to trust a true freshman at any position, but sometimes it's necessary and the risk can bring great reward. I think in this case it's necessary, and that one of those two will step up for us.

"The three running backs, divided up 19 carries Saturday and those 19 rushing plays produced a grand total of 28 yards."

3) Offensive Line:

The inadequacies of our OL were exposed in this game at Auburn. I think everyone recognized that something was wrong with our run blocking in the first two games, but by the end of the game the rushing numbers seemed adequate. Against a top SEC defense, our run blocking was exposed for what it is. Mediocre. This will have to improve dramatically if we want to win on the road against TEN and FL. It's becoming more apparent that the failures of both Saban and Miles to adequately recruit OL over the last 3 years has put us dangerously thin at the position. For all the worts so far for this starting 5, don't look for any help off the bench. The 1 OL recruit from 2004 and the 4 from 2005 better pan out and fast, or next year we'll have even bigger problems. This has got to be the biggest need in this current recruiting class. Next year we'll need to find a new RG and RT. Those two will have to come from the 2005 class (2004 was Ciron Black, he's at LT). The depth for next years OL will come from the 2 non-starters from 2005 class and whatever we get in the 2006 class. Doesn't sound too good. On to the current year. Let's hope the coaching staff can work with this group to improve their performance before we go into the Swamp.

"No back up lineman was on the field for a single play against Auburn."

4) QB:

a) I really thought Jamarcus had turned the corner. He probably gets a C in this game. He had some missed throws to go with his poor decision making on the final drive. No need to dwell on it, but with seconds to go, you need to throw the ball away and not take a sack. Also, when you are down to your last play, get the ball into the end zone. There were two times in the game where Jamarcus had open running lanes, that had it been Flynn, we would have picked up a first down. Instead he got tripped up and fell short both times. At critical 3rd downs. I think it's time that we let Flynn take at least one series in each half. He's demonstrated the ability to not lose games, and should be trusted to play. He gives you a change of pace at QB, and makes it hard for a defense to game plan you, if you know you've got to prepare for both Jamarcus and Flynn. I'm not usually in favor of a 2 QB system, but if used properly, it can work. Urban Meyer played a true freshman (Tim Tebow) on the road at TEN in a big SEC east match up for 7 different plays. And he picked up some key yardage for them. Flynn would probably be the starting QB at every school except Auburn and Florida in the SEC if he were to transfer. And would have a good shot at unseating Ainge in TEN. It's pretty obvious to me that Jamarcus has better talent, but Flynn has a better understanding of what Jimbo is trying to do and of how to read a defense. It's time we use both their talents.

b) If we are going to start Jamarcus and sit Flynn, come high water, then let's give him the best chance to succeed. Put him in the shotgun and put your 3-4 WR's on the field and lets go the Steve Spurrier route. If you insist on running this conservative, game management style offense, then Flynn may be the better option.

Penalties:

1) This is the easy one, but all LSU fans can point to and say we got robbed. I agree. However, I put it second to our offense as a reason for the loss. On the road, you have to overcome these kinds of things. And even with the calls, we had an opportunity late to win the game. We just didn't get it done. That doesn't lessen my anger for the horrible officiating.

2) That was a catch by Hester. How they ruled incontrovertible evidence existed to overturn the call on the field is beyond me. The non-call in the end zone on Irons interference on Lafell, was huge. The picking up of the interference call was a mistake, but given how close the two events occurred to one another, tipped ball versus contact with the receiver, it was a judgement call by the crew, that was wrong, but without the benefit of having instant replay, could have gone either way. Too bad we can't replay whether a tipped ball occurs before an interference. And now we know that the SEC is sticking by their calls. Also, the non-personal foul call when Hester got hit late out of bounds was big. All of these things went against us, and no questionable calls went against Auburn. That was huge.

3) Early in the 4th Quarter, we had a false start and a holding penalty back to back, that killed what was shaping up to be a promising drive. That wasn't the officials fault. We killed ourselves with those.

Special Teams:

This was a mixed bag. Looks like Colt David should have been kicking the FG's last year. Nice 42 yarder. The one negative, is that we have yet to make any contribution to winning a game from our kick or punt returner in any of the 3 games we've played in this year. It may be time to find someone else to fill that role. Unless they have the dropsies, which in that case it's better to have the guy that will catch the ball even if he won't contribute to yardage. What a difference from having Skyler or Shyrone back there.

Conclusion:

The game lived up to its billing. It was a great college football game. Defensively oriented. Both teams played with a lot of passion. And it should be apparent to LSU fans, that the Auburn program is as good as ours right now and their talent level is equivalent as well. The only advantage I gave us was at the WR position. We failed to take advantage of that. Our game plan was unimaginative and too conservative on offense. Our OL and RB's failed to create any kind of a running game; our QB mismanaged a late game drive, and we were adversely affected by some questionable officiating. That in a nutshell is why we lost the game. But, I'm not going to go with the catastrophe syndrome. This team can still achieve great things this year. How great will be determined by the games at TEN and FL. If we go 11-1 or 10-2 we have a great shot at getting the at-large BCS bowl berth created this year with the 5 BCS bowl game addition. It's very unlikely that Auburn will lose 2 SEC games this year, with their toughest remaining games being against Georgia and Florida. Both at the Plains. With GA sporting a freshman QB, they won't pull off the upset. FL has a shot, but again that's only 1 SEC loss. It's less likely that we'll get a NC berth than it is a SEC berth. No way the media puts a 1 loss LSU team that isn't in its conf championship game in the title game over a 1 loss USC, ND, Texas, Michigan, etc….it just won't happen. So, lets take it 1 game at a time, hope for 2 Auburn losses, but also know that if we get that 5th BCS bowl berth, we will have a great season.