LGT Final: Louisiana 34, Coastal Carolina 24

[Turbine]

C4L you've been very critical of Des' playcalling. "He's a terrible playcaller. Plain and simple." As someone who is critical of Des (particularly in in game threads), I think you should go back and give this game another viewing/analysis. We had 10 drives yesterday. Let's look at those:

1st - 10 plays/50 yards/missed FG - two dropped passes (one which cost us a first down inside the red zone and ultimately stalled the drive)
2nd - 7 plays/98 yards/TD
3rd - 9 plays/73 yards/TD
4th - 11 plays/47 yards/FG - Tavion Smith dropped what would have been an easy first down inside the 15-20
5th - 5 plays/16 yards/end of half - I didn't love the 3rd and 8 run to take it to half. However, our punter has not been great and our long snapper has been worse. I can see the logic, although like I said don't love it.
6th - 3 plays/1 yard/punt - this was a headscratcher for me. two runs with Dre'lyn and then an incomplete. Yesterday was not Dre'lyn's day at all. Didn't get this one.
7th - 4 plays/27 yards/punt - got off to a great start with a 12 yard Bill carry. Then got behind the sticks on 1st and ended up running on 3rd and long.
8th - 12 plays/81 yards/TD
9th - 9 plays/55 yards/FG - had a 3rd & 4. We ran 4 routes to the left side of the field and one quick slant on the right. Bill Davis was wide open on the left. Ben never looked to that side. Threw the quick contested quick slant incomplete. That could have been the design and I'm not sure he had time to go through his reads even if it wasn't.
10th - 6 plays/76 yards/TD - Not that the TD was some brilliant design. Pure improvisation. I personally liked the decision to throw on 3rd and 13 and not just run and punt. This drive also included 2 procedure penalties and a drop by Carter that negated a really nice play design on a 2nd & 8.

That's 7-8/10 drives with really solid playcalling. A lack of execution kept us out of the endzone many more times than Michael Desormeaux yesterday. I have to give the guy props. He has made some strides I didn't think he was capable of.

Awesome recap

[MetryCajun]

The difference between now and the past two years are simple.
1) QB play is better.
2) OL is pass blocking better
3) We have gotten a few more breaks

Overall team talent looks slightly improved on offense and slightly down on defense. I could be wrong but I see several NFL players on offense and none on defense.

[Turbine]

A lot of guys on here have thin skin. Any criticism is viewed as hate. Too take a Foote term…they are mental midgets.

Also bowl games are meaningless. If you only have to win 50% of your games to get there, it’s not an achievement. Conference titles are the only thing that matters in this age of football.

If they are 50% achievable we should see 50% of teams touting 7 in a row or better.

Pretty good achievement in my book.

[zeppelincajun]

Zepp, if you watched the game, please repsond: how many different receivers did Ben target? Also, even though they were listed as incompletions, how many missed interceptions did the Cajuns have in the 2nd half

Not the entire game but off the top of my head Ben targets: Davis, Perry, Jensen, Stamey (sp?), Carter, Williams, Smith, Bernard, Broussard, Legendre.

Picks I know KC dropped one in his hands. Cant remember if there were others.

[Jacob81]

What are you even talking about? The SBC Championship is all that matters in today’s game. The SBC is down and won’t be in contention for the CFP slot this year. It doesn’t mean the goals change.

You are confusing the result, aka bowl eligibility, with the goal.

It’s the highest ranked g5 conference champ, not the conference champ from the highest rated g5 conference. If we win out we will be in the discussion.

[covcaj]

It’s the highest ranked g5 conference champ, not the conference champ from the highest rated g5 conference. If we win out we will be in the discussion.

If Boise or SMU keep winning it will be one of them.

[Hudsheen#Fired]

If Boise or SMU keep winning it will be one of them.

SMU is in the ACC, Right now it looks like AAC or MWC conference champ has the leg up on us as Boise, UNLV, Army, Navy, Tulane are all above us

[Rainman66]

The drops drive me nuts more than Dez’s play calling.

We continued to run stretch plays with Washington, he is an inside RB. That is why he had a bad day. Zylan Perry is extremely effective running stretch plays.

We have been the best offense week in and week out. We can run essentially at will. We can pass it, when we catch the ball, at will. What we don’t do is effectively score the football.

IMHO it is because of play sequencing. I will admit, that isn’t on Dez all the time. Wooldridge is an ultra safe QB. He rarely ever takes chances, sometimes that hurts our scoring opportunities.

We run a very balanced offense, this season in particular, finally utilizing the biggest mismatch on the field. Which is our TE room.

Our first twenty or so offensive plays in every single game are scripted. That is a full weeks worth of game prep and play sequencing to exploit mismatches. Dez and staff are excellent when it comes to this. It’s about as good as it gets. Execution is what stalls those drives.

4th drive, pretty good series. Execution stalled the drive.

5th drive, pathetic. 3 timeouts, middle of the field is wide open. Legendre and Johnson hadn’t been stopped all game. We could have easily been in FG range had we utilized the middle of the field.

6th drive, ineffective play calls for the player personnel. Wasted series.

7th drive. Another series where the play calling went away from success.

9th drive, absolutely wrong call on 3rd down. Prior to that, the play calling was decent. But you have to do what works well on a 3rd down call. We rarely if ever run an isolated route with success.

The last scoring drive was luck. It didn’t help that we kept shooting ourselves in the foot. But great pocket presence by Ben and an effort play by Johnson saved our behind. Although Neal was wide open had a better throw been made. We had to get the first down because our defense can’t be trusted to win us a game.

What I do like about the play calling this season as opposed to his previous seasons. I love the pace of the offense. We can effectively run and throw the ball. Finally incorporating the TE. Something we should have been doing since Bustle left. Some of the plays we have ran this season have been incredibly designed. Especially last week against App St.

Dez gets in ruts with his sequencing and it hurts our scoring offense.

When we play TxSt, ULM and the SBC East champ we will need to score.

We cannot run it at will, and people who insist on doing this need to evolve their thinking. Teams are loading the box against us, thus making it much easier to throw the ball, and thankfully we have the QB and receiving talent to absolutely make them pay.

Have we, at times, been successful against running it against overloaded boxes, yes we have, that doesn’t mean it is advisable to do it. The literal numbers are against you and in the long term will provide more negative outcomes than positive ones.

My main complaint with Des’ play calling, and/or Ben’s adjustments, this year is that we have run the ball too much into bad boxes. I understand it in the past, when we probably didn’t have the best QB, receivers or routes in our system to take advantage of it, but we definitely do this season.

All that being said, I stand by my statement that this is the best offense we have had in this century and play calling has everything to do with that. Des/Fenroy were explosive, but no one was scared of the pass. Teams have to prepare to defend every part of the field against us this season.

[Jacob81]

SMU is in the ACC, Right now it looks like AAC or MWC conference champ has the leg up on us as Boise, UNLV, Army, Navy, Tulane are all above us

Yes. I said if we run the table we will be in the discussion.

[cajun4life]

It’s the highest ranked g5 conference champ, not the conference champ from the highest rated g5 conference. If we win out we will be in the discussion.

No kidding, yes I understand that. Regardless, the goal of every single successful G5 program isn’t a bowl game. Bowl games are consolation prizes. Schedule well enough, win your games, with style, and win the SBC Championship.

CFP playoff, not easy, but attainable.

[Swamp]

CFP playoff, not easy, but attainable.

Now do you get what I was pointing at, and not looking to continue this war.

You took my applause toward eligibility in 7 games as though, we good. Catch a bowl game check, good season.

This is simply not the case. The hard core folks on this platform (RP) don't think we're gonna accomplish great things. We know it.

[CharlieK]

Interesting. "Dez haters"
If being able to identify shortcomings of a football team and some coaching decisions makes one a "Dez hater" I guess I hate Michael Desormeaux. Huh.....thanks for letting me know. I didn't realize I hated that man. I always thought I could just identify mistakes made, regardless if we won or lost. I guess Dez hates his football team and it's staff. Hell, Dez must hate himself. I mean EVERY. . .SINGLE. . . WEEK....he goes over and over, all the mistakes made in the previous games to his team, coaching staff and himself. Dez is actually on a whole other level with his hate. He actually designs the whole pregame week making everyone practice to not make those mistakes again, so that it doesn't cost us a loss. It's like he has this real dumb@$$ viewpoint that even when they win, he feels this NEED to point out all their mistakes and makes them work on fixing them, to boot!!! What a hater! At least I'm not THAT much of a hater though, right?

No the haters are the ones who imply or flat out say we are winning in spite of Dez. The ones who imply or flat out say he is an idiot. The ones who make up nonsensical arguments like he changed his play calling halfway thru the game then magically changed it back. The ones who claim we have far and away better talent and are winning in spite of dez.

You know what and whom I’m talking g about. Those who have decided he was the wrong hire 3 years ago and therefore can never be a good coach.

I don’t think you are one of those.