Below is a link to a great article on the Saints' history in free agency. I would squabble that the Joe Horn signing should probably be at No.3, over QB Bobby Hebert, even though Horn blew up his team's chemistry. But, then again, Hebert crippled his team during a key season by holding out (1990). After just a single season, I'm ready to put safety Darren Sharper up there as well. He changed the dynamic of the defense by making teams pay for guessing against Gregg Williams's schemes.
The first round of the NFL playoffs was very disappointing. Each game was lost because of a lack of discipline and enthusiasm. The Patriots, the Bengals, and the Eagles were disinterested embarrassments. The final game of the weekend (Packers at Cardinals) proved a Madden-like scoring bonanza, with an added bit of controversy when the officials missed a final-play face mask penalty. Today, the final eight enter the tournament.
Arizona Cardinals at New Orleans Saints
Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner is coming in very hot, and the Saints have turned it off the last three weeks. I remember watching Warner during his "Greatest Show on Turf" in St. Louis, and I disliked his attitude and lack of toughness. This is the case of the unstoppable force and immovable object. Drew Brees and the Saints offense get hot in the second half but early sacks and turnovers haunt them.
The Cardinals win, 31-21.
Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts
The Colts have gotten grief for turning it off this year, with the possibility of repeating mistakes of 2005, 2007, and 2008. Quarterback Joe Flacco deserves a world of credit for guiding him team deep into the playoffs in his first two years, and he does more at this point in his career than Ben Roethlisberger. During the Colts' title run in 2006, Manning beat the Ravens, relying mostly on his defense to force Steve McNair's red zone errors. In fact, he Ravens don't have a lot of success against Manning to this point at all.
But I see the Ravens steeling a victory in overtime, 20-14.
New York Jets at San Diego Chargers
Mark Sanchez has struggled since Week 3, and his exuberant SoCal personality by a dour frown. ("Mark Sanchez face" is the expression a quarterback has when a poor offensive coordinator shits in his cereal.) Norv Turner has proven to be a great hire for a Chargers franchise that needed a smart, big-picture head honcho. They exploit the weaknesses in the Jets offense and don't give up easy first downs by playing undisciplined defense (as the Bengals did). The Chargers win, 37-10.
Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings
Give credit to Brett Favre: he picked a vehicle with speed and power as a final career moment. The Vikings great defense, though aged, have been overlooked in the ongoing Favre debacle. Before last week, Dallas had not won a playoff game since 1996. The Cowboys start another losing streak. Vikings win, 20-6.
Throw a rock and you'll hit a list of "Best Football Players Ever," "Best Quarterbacks Ever," etc. I'm always fascinated by the criteria (championships rings, or their effect on the game, or their ability to raise a team's performance). I decided to give another question a go: "Which player would I take in an All-Time Draft?" I could have Jim Brown, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Jerry Rice, or Dick Butkus, but I would take the player Vince Lombardi called "the finest player I've ever coached:" Forrest Gregg.
Gregg played left tackle for Lombardi's Packers from 1956 to 1971, before finishing his career with a Super Bowl VI-winning Dallas Cowboys team. With the Packers, he won five other championships, leading the way for Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung and creating a pocket for Bart Starr. He played 188 consecutive games, a record. He was powerful enough to handle Hall of Fame defensive end Deacon Jones, when they played in one of the great individual match-ups, and athletic enough to seal the edge on those famous sweeps. The Jones-Gregg battles encompassed a great contrast in player styles, with Jones's bluster and passion and Gregg's dispassionate consistency.
Granted, he played left tackle in an era before the era of dominant pass-rushers. But I've seen enough to think he could have adapted his game in any ear or any scheme. I particularly like the idea of building a franchise from the offensive line. Maybe I should have taken Anthony Munoz, but I would be skeptical of his ability to stay healthy for ten years. Remember Munoz failed a physical before the 1980 draft. (As it turned out, Munoz missed three games in his first twelve seasons, but I'm still skeptical as a theoretical GM.)
In a disappointing title game, Alabama beat Texas, 37-21. Texas's Colt McCoy was knocked out on the first drive, and Garrett Gilbert threw a killer interception returned for a touchdown before halftime. The team rallied and got some shocking big plays in the middle of the defense.
Give credit to Nick Saban for adjusting on the fly. Alabama's defense bore down on Texas and got some key turnovers. Javier Arenas saw his stock fall, but Rolando McClain will certainly get drafted in the top 10. Maybe the Chiefs or Raiders? For Texas, you have to wonder what kind of point differential would his presence carry? Ten? Gilbert got some big game experience and that will be enough to give their team some hope next year.
Unfortunately, none of us got the game we wanted. Even Alabama fans have to admit this is not how they wanted to win a title. The next college football questions are: how high does Boise State rank in the 2010 preseason? How good will the Big 12 be, and could we see Nebraska ascend? Can the SEC win a fifth straight BCS title? Who is John Brantley?
The 2010 Bowl Season is upon us, and, even though each bowl season has come to feel endless (in a bad way), I'm excited. For the last few years, I've been disappointed by some of the match-ups (Illinois-USC two years ago, Texas-Ohio State last year). Maybe fans should redirect their outrage from the BCS to the bowl selection committees. But, I say with regained composure, I'm excited. Here are the five BCS bowl games, and how I see them playing out:
January 1, 2010: Sugar Bowl - Florida vs. Cincinnati
This game pits the most overhyped team (2009 Gators) against the least hyped undefeated team I've ever seen (2009 Bearcats). When I've heard anyone suggest that the Bearcats might beat Alabama or Texas, that same person says it so slyly the boast might be understood as a practical joke. Watching the Bearcats evolve over the last season, watching them absorb misfortune after misfortune, has convinced me that they win despite the fact that they're the last stop on the Tim Tebow and (maybe) Urban Meyer Farewell Tour. I predict a cozy and high-scoring victory for Cincinnati, 45-21.
January 1, 2010: Rose Bowl -Oregon vs. Ohio State
This is secretly one of the best games of the bowl season. Both teams overcame media debacles at the start of the season, and won their respective better-than-anticipated conferences. Though Tressel's squad has lost three consecutive BCS bowls, Ohio State showed up in last year's Fiesta Bowl with a great performance. No one is certain what to expect from Chip Kelly at this point in his career, so the game should give us a good barometer of where these teams are going in the new decade. I pick Oregon in a surprisingly high-scoring game, 31-28.
January 4, 2010: Fiesta Bowl - Boise State vs. TCU
I'll be honest. I haven't gotten to see a complete game for either of these teams. So I'll keep the punditry to a minimum. I love watching Boise State, I believe TCU to have a great defense. Both coaches seem like they're committed to their mid-major for the long haul, and they will see the BCS cartel fall within their careers. The game goes to overtime and TCU wins, 35-31.
January 2, 2010: Orange Bowl - Iowa vs. Georgia Tech
Strange that I have picked so many of these games as high-scoring, but you don't get to the BCS table without some explosive playmakers. Unless you play great defense and adequate offense in the Big 10 (Iowa), and unless you mop up with weaker ACC teams with a well-executed and fresh scheme (Georgia Tech). What might have happened if Georgia Tech had played Miami later in the season? What might have happened if Rick Stanzi had not gotten injured? We'll never know. Iowa wins, 24-14.
These are my humble rankings for the week of December 1, 2009:
1. Alabama 2. Texas 3. Florida 4. Cincinnati 5. Boise State 6. TCU 7. Oregon 8. Iowa 9. Georgia Tech 10. Pittsburgh 11. Virginia Tech 12. Ohio State 13. BYU 14. Miami 15. LSU 16. Penn State 17. Houston 18. Oklahoma State 19. Oregon State 20. Stanford 21. Nebraska 22. West Virgina 23. Clemson 24. California 25. Utah
Teams that have good reason to complain about this ranking: TCU, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Nebraska, Houston, Ohio State Teams that don't: LSU, Miami, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Ohio State
Monday night, Tom Brady brought his explosive offense into the Superdome to play the unbeaten New Orleans Saints. While watching the game, I considered how both have evolved their strategic approaches in the last three years. New England has incorporated spread concepts into their offense, and, this season, the defense New Orleans has taken on the identity of new coordinator Gregg Williams. It leads me to reflect on how and when strategic adjustments should be made.
The Saints defense has been the team's most improved area this season. Even with both starting corners out, and free agents castaways at corner, they attacked the Pats shotgun-spread. Williams is not going to wait for Mike McKenzie, Chris McAlister, and rookie Malcolm Jenkins to catch up. He's committed absolutely to his scheme. Remember that the Pats, too, have remained loyal to their scheme, since switching to it in 2007. That zealous committment seemed to catch up to them in the 2008 Super Bowl. Will we see the same for Williams's defense?
Offensively, the Saints relied on max-protect schemes (sometimes only sending two receivers into routes). With left tackle Jammal Brown out, the adjustment seemed warranted. On the other side, there's the Patriots defense. In the offseason, the Patriots adapted their defensive schemes to new personnel, chuffing aside Belicheck's effective 3-deep and 4-deep zone coverage schemes. This season, they have relied on man coverage more often and, against New Orleans, it cost them. Throughout the game, receivers broke free, sometimes against zone and sometimes against man. Commentators have blamed the youth and inexperience of the Pats backfield, but that's never stopped them before (see the long list of rookie contributors in the Pats' run to three titles). Have the off-season schematic adjustments created some uncertainty in that once reliable backfield?
Advanced NFL stats has put together a spiffy new way of predicting the future success of NFL teams. The goal is to calculate the probability that a team would beat an average team at a neutral site, from offensive and defensive stats against factors like penalty rates.
It would be interesting to see if Indianapolis, New Orleans, and Denver are there at the end, and if Minnesota is overrated.
One of my favorite aspects of the professional games is roster management. Perhaps because I have played Madden in Franchise mode for too long, I have followed the movement and development of talent in the NFL closely for the better half of the last decade, sometimes more closely than scores and victories. With the salary cap in place, the annual draft carries the most weight for a team’s success (especially over the long term).
That bloggers jump to premature conclusions is a fair criticism, and I am not exception. How is the 2009 Draft shaping up in retrospect? How does a good draft or a bad draft shape a team’s immediate success? By taking a look at the drafts of the two of the most surprising and two of the most disappointing teams, maybe we can discern a few trends.
Minnesota Vikings (6-0)
Key picks: WR Percy Harvin (20 catches, 243 receiving yards), OT Phil Loadholt (6 starts)
The biggest surprise of this young season for me is the emergence of rookie wide receiver Percy Harvin. I was skeptical of his NFL potential because of questions regarding his college system, attitude, and health, but he has emerged as a young versatile talent for the Vikings to pair with RB Adrian Peterson for years. (I was very big on WR Hakeem Nicks, who has turned out to be just as good, and maybe more explosive, for the New York Giants). As big an acquisition as QB Brett Favre has been, Phil Loadholt has surprisingly contributed great production for one of the league’s best offensive lines. Both players were featured in their dramatic comeback victory against San Francisco in the third week of the season.
New Orleans Saints (5-0)
Key picks: CB Malcolm Jenkins (1 recovered fumble), P Thomas Morstead (43.9 average)
Two-fourths of the Saints’ 2009 draft was lost to injury in training camp. The early success of the Saints is driven by veterans (CB Jabari Greer and S Darren Sharper), so the concern is whether they can sustain their high level of play throughout the postseason and into future seasons. If they can’t, that means their high cap number and the less experienced draft picks could limit the team’s flexibility in the future.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-6)
Key picks: QB Josh Freeman (0 starts), Roy Miller (14 tackles, 1 sack)
If Jon Gruden’s history was any indication, similar results would have been in store for the Bucs whether Raheem Morris was the head coach or not. Still, the Bucs’ investment into WRs Michael Clayton (11 catches, 154 yards) and Antonio Byrant (14 catches, 178 yards) looks more puzzling every game that rookie seventh-round pick Sammie Stroughter basically matches their performance (13 catches, 151 yards). The Bucs look like they hit on multiple picks but the trade of disappointing DE Gaines Adams and the questionable maturity of QB Josh Freeman make me wonder how bright the future really is.
The puzzler for me is why Head Coach Jeff Fisher refuses to put quarterback Vince Young on the field. Nevertheless, when I looked at the stats, I was surprised to see that the Titans have actually been committed to a youth movement this year. Players such as Jason McCourty and Jared Cook are getting valuable experience. Still, in the absense of Albert Haynesworth, they could use more push in the middle of the line from Marks or second-year players Jason Jones (3 sacks) and William Hayes (1.5 sacks).This year, the results are bad, but I think they are in line for another double-digit winning season next year.
Conclusion
Free agency has played a bigger factor so far. Other winning teams that are getting great minutes from rookies include the Cincinnati Bengals (OT Andre Smith) and the New York Jets (QB Mark Sanchez). I look forward to returning to this issue during the playoffs to see how our young stars are performing.
The only match-up of undefeated teams this weekend features some intriguing plotlines.Drew Brees, who nearly broke the NFL record for yardage and may actually do it this year, will face a defense that ranks second in points allowed.The Jets head coach Rex Ryan features an aggressive, blitzing defense that has frustrated three quarterbacks with a combined twenty-eight years of NFL experience and five Super Bowl appearances.But it hasn’t faced a receiving corps as deep nor a release as quick as the one Brees brings with him into this game.
There are some parallels to 1985, when a tough Chicago defense swaggered into the Orange Bowl for a late regular-season game with Dan Marino’s Miami Dolphins.Rex Ryan’s father, the legendary defensive coordinator Bud Ryan had conceived the 46 defense (named after #46 Doug Plank) for a defense that boasted four Hall-of-Famers and would lead the team through a dominating Super Bowl run.Bud Ryan would be carried off the field along with head coach Mike Ditka.
On December 2, 1985, however, that Chicago team was bested, 38-24, by a third-year quarterback with a fast release. Marino had already broken the yardage record and won league MVP the previous year, his second in the league.The Bears defense, which featured linebackers like Mike Singletary that were ineffective in pass coverage, looked baffled and mediocre that night, but would rally the rest of the way to become perhaps the greatest unit in NFL history.
This parallel might be strained: Brees is not Marino; Rex Ryan’s Jets defense is more athletic; and neither team, as of yet, is guaranteed a long run through the playoffs.Looking back on this game in December, we might see two 7-7 teams or two 12-2 teams.All the same, this game will shape those fortunes more than any other in the first month.Will an improved Saints defense handle the rookie, Mark Sanchez?How will their two aggressive play-callers, Ryan and Saints head coach Sean Payton, attack each other?
I would like to look at the ways Ryan has frustrated the opposing quarterback first, and then examine some of the ways Payton and Brees will try to counteract that defense.In Tom Brady’s second regular-season game since his knee surgery and recovery, Ryan harassed Brady with basic arithmetic and outstanding athleticism. Early in the first quarter, before the snap, Ryan’s defense showed an eight-man front and Brady chose to keep seven blockers in with three receivers running vertical routes.When Ryan chooses to bring seven defenders, four to the offense’s right side, the offensive line fails to slide and pick up the extra blitzers.Brady throws a pass up to Randy Moss (who should probably win against the smaller Darrelle Revis) but the pass is intercepted. The Patriots offensive line usually relies on dual reads: most of their offensive line will read multiple defenders to see if they blitz.If both blitz, then the quarterback should take a shorter pass, rather than risk a sack.At the end of this play, one player (tight end Benjamin Watson) will have two players to block and another (guard Logan Mankins) no one to block.
In the second week of the season, Drew Brees faced a typically aggressive Eagles defense that blitzed about six defenders most of the time.Against the blitz, Brees made accurate downfield throws.On one key third down in the third quarter, needing eleven yards, Brees faced nine men in the middle of the field, with each receiver locked down by a cornerback with no safety help.Before the snap, he looks almost excited about the coverage.Brees takes a seven-step drop, and the line caves in, but he completes a 31 yard wheel route to the left sideline to Devery Henderson, just out of the reach of Sheldon Brown.Importantly, Hendersonlined up almost fifteen yards from the sideline, giving the opportunity of “pulling away” to the left, from the defender.
Unlike Brady, who was recovering from surgery and looked skittish in the pocket, Brees will relish the opportunity to throw against single man coverage, even if he takes a few hits while standing in the pocket.However, unlike the Lions defense (week one) and the Bills defense (week three), the Jets will not allow him to slide in the pocket, reload, and throw on the run.Though they have made explosive plays in the first few weeks, the key plays in this game will be the five yard dump-offs that sustain drives.
I was directed to this book by one of the better articles on the state of professional football by a non-sports journalist. That essayist, Adam Gopnik, who writes in the long-established New Yorker style (intellectualized, precise, etc.), casually recommended Blount's book as one of the great works of non-fiction on the sport. About Three Bricks documents the 1973 season of the Pittsburgh Steelers. If you have read Gopnik, you can see the attraction: Blount does not indulge in strategy or jargon, and maintains the kind of bemused distance characteristic of, say, Joseph Mitchell's "Profiles" columns. There isn't a lot of penetrating reporting here, but there are great personality sketches and a refreshing take on the sport. (One of the weaknesses Gopnik points to is Blount's avoidance of the steroid innovation and use by the 1970s Steelers.)
Blount brings a perspective, a kind of popular sociology, to the professional football landscape. As I mentioned, the character sketches are great: Chuck Noll, Art Rooney, Terry Bradshaw, Jack Lambert, and even 1950s Steelers coach Buddy Parker are caught in unusual and fascinating lights. I also found Blount's observations on how race shaped the franchise and period refreshing. For instance, many of the players suspected each other of one expression of racism or another, with Bradshaw accusing Noll himself of favoring African American players. Of course, Noll's greatest asset was his unprejudiced eye for talent: he drafted Hall of Fame players from traditionally African American schools like Alabama A & M (John Stallworth), commuter schools like the North Texas State University (Joe Greene), and traditional football powers like USC (Lynn Swann) and Wisconsin (Mike Webster).
Apparently, the author of About Three Bricks was lucky in three ways that raise a book from curiosity piece to a vital read for any one interested in the sport's history. First, this book captures the sport and its management at a time when it was shifting into modernity. The antics of Parker are drawn in sharp contrast to the professionalism of Noll. Second, Blount chose the Steelers over the Rams and other teams for two seemingly arbitrary reasons: the 1973 Immaculate Reception (which he saw on live television) and the fact he shared his last name with the great cornerback Mel Blount. As it turned out, he drew a team that would win four Super Bowls over the next decade, gaining a loyal, nation-wide fan base in the process. The third reason that this book stands out as an important read is what might seem to be a weakness to some: Blount does not narrow his focus to the starters or to the coaching and ownership side of the organization. There are chapters on scouting and long passages about backup offensive linemen, that would not have found their way into other books on professional football in the period. (In hindsight, with scouting and management now featured on SportsCenter and debated at the water cooler, this is a great virtue.) But Blount's attraction to this aspect of the game is rooted in his fascination with the marginal talent, the guy with the great nickname and dazzling personality struggling to make a career of professional football, and not the celebrated stars. That sympathy raises this book finally to a terrific accomplishment in the genre.
Meat Market focuses on one recruiting season for the University of Mississippi’s football program.Under the guidance of head coach (and former recruiting guru) Ed Orgeron, the Ole Miss program is expected to land top ten classes, then eventually top ten regular-season rankings.In the recruiting world, that year (2007) seemed like something imagined by Ionesco, fore-grounded by Jimmy Clausen’s stretch Hummer limousine and four national titles in South Bend.
A regular ESPN contributor, Bruce Feldman writes in the style of the fifteen-minute Sportscenter segment: clearly composed, well-researched, superficial. There are no shocking revelations, even if the exact methods of circumventing NCAA rules make some fans uncomfortable.More disappointingly, Feldman does not analyze (question?) some of the presumptions in recruiting circles, as Michael Lewis (and Billy Beane) did in Moneyball.
Most fans will find the process of evaluating high school prospects informative. How does one 320-lb. defensive tackle grade out as five-star, while this one grades out as two-star? The frequent accuracy of professional scouting is undeniable, but greater insight into the trade might have been given by a different author.As I suggested earlier, at USC, Orgeron gained a reputation for finding “creative” ways to enroll players with questionable GPAs. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with it; once a player enrolls however, they should pursue a credible course of study.
The most interesting passages of the book, aside from the outrageous second-hand accounts of Orgeron’s locker-room antics, are the exchanges between the head coach and his recruiting/coaching staff.One recruiter brags that he will be able to land the most coveted running back in the country (He doesn’t).A different recruiter slowly finds himself on thin ice after failing to land one targeted player, after another.Between reviewing their targeted prospects, Orgeron and his staff will watch in a tape of the very best 18-year-old prospects (which are beyond his reach), which leaves the room of adult men salivating.
The 2007 recruiting cycle was the last Orgeron engineered as head coach. (He is now recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach at Tennessee.) What Feldman suggests in the last chapter of his book (that Orgeron would need to win in 2007 to see the real fruition of his recruiting successes in 2008 and 2009) has been realized: Houston Nutt led Ole Miss to a preseason top five ranking. In an upset loss to Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina squad, I watched a defense stocked by Orgeron and his staff keep the Rebels in a close game by harassing Stephen Garcia for most of the game.
“If you have two quarterbacks, you have none.” Among football pundits, this has become a tautology used against any coach that sees some merit in changing quarterbacks over the course of a season, a quarter, or even a series. The drawbacks are obvious: each quarterback will have varying degrees of experience and composure, a unique skill set, and an approach to attacking a defense informed by those factors. For a passer, subtle changes in ball placement and velocity can derail an offensive gameplan. (From the flip perspective, it’s hard to believe that a coach and a coordinator would have the same confidence in both to run the complete offense.)
But at least two programs have had tremendous success with a two-quarterback system in the last two college football seasons. In looking at LSU and Utah, the benefits strike me as more persuasive than those drawbacks.In 2007, Les Miles alternated between Matt Flynn (a fifth-year senior) and the more athletic Ryan Perrilloux (a third-year sophomore). And Miles and offensive coordinator Gary Crowton did not allow the situation dictate whether Flynn or Perrilloux would be on the field.Flynn led the team back in the fourth quarter against Alabama, and Perrilloux, though almost exclusively used as a running threat, was taking snaps at the beginning of the fourth quarter against Florida - a game in which LSU would score two touchdowns in a late rally (see clip). Perrilloux’s experience would be vital as he would start in place of an injured Flynn the SEC championship against Tennessee. Then, he did not see the field in the National Championship game against OhioState. (That decision was curious, as the Buckeyes had shown a weakness against mobile quarterbacks, in their only loss of the season, to Juice Williams and the Rose Bowl-bound Illini. But the Tigers prevailed, 38-24, anyway.) Statistically, Perrilloux attempted 25 % as much as Flynn.
Similarly, Kyle Whittingham’s Utah Utes won the 2009 Sugar Bowl against the Alabama Crimson Tide, scoring 31 points (the most that had been scored against the SEC runner-up all season). Though Brian Johnson would get most of the attention (as much attention as the Utes would get), the first touchdown was scored on a designed quarterback draw by his back-up Corbin Louks against the Michigan Wolverines. Statistically, Louks would only attempt seven passes but he would be third on the team in carries (27) and yards (213), with a long of 69 yards. The Mountain West Conference champion would finish #2 overall in the final AP poll.
The offenses of the 2007 Tigers and 2008 Utes were two-quarterback systems that worked, and they worked by careful attention to game situation and play design. (For instance, both Louks and Perilloux would occasionally throw downfield off the option play.)Perhaps more importantly, a coordinator and coach would also have to handle the confidence (or ego) of both players. But the goal of this entry will be strictly Xs and Os.
One of the major struggles so far for the 2009 Tigers is managing a similar quarterback situation, between second-year starter Jordan Jefferson and first-year five-star recruit Russell Shepard. Already, some have questioned how well Shepard (as a run-only threat) is being used. (From what I’ve seen, I doubt that the humble Shepard is disgruntled.) How did these two previous conference champions use the two-quarterback system as an asset in tightly-contested games to their advantage?
In the first clip, offensive coordinator calls a fake reverse option to the left. Early in the first quarter, against #9 Florida’s young, aggressive defense, the call works well for a first down. The Gators load up the box on Perrilloux, predominately used as a running threat, but bite on the fake reverse, clearing a lane for Perrilloux and the option man, Keiland Williams.
When Crowton calls a similar play early in the fourth quarter, the line is unbalanced to the running side (the right this time). Not only will the Tigers probably run the ball, they can only run the ball. The Gators are in good position, but this time the math privileges the Tigers, who gain another first down with the play.
As simple as this strategy is, the last two years is littered with teams that have mismanaged their quarterback situation, including Miami (with Jacory Harris and Robert Marve) and Virginia Tech (with Tyrod Taylor and Sean Glennon). Altogether benching one of those players (as Jim Tressel did with Todd Boeckman) should also qualify as a botched strategy.
Fast-forward to the 2009 LSU Tigers. To this point, Shepard has not attempted a pass, averaging 6.9 yard per rushing attempt on 7 carries.The chief concern with involving Shepard in the passing game more is that Jordan Jefferson has been overly cautious with the ball, choosing to manage games against three unranked teams rather than challenging their defensive backs down field. Whether the Tigers feature Shepard in big games or not, their offensive success will be predicated on Jefferson willingness to do so.
A freelance writer based in Franklinton, Louisiana, Yargo is at work on a book-length manuscript about inmate boxing in Louisiana. He closely follows SEC and professional football, but welcomes any suggestions for future articles from any and all readers.
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