Lots of catching up to do for LSU this spring

To say LSU’s past two football seasons have been disappointing would be a bit of an understatement.

After being the kings of the jungle throughout the SEC in the early part of the decade, the Tigers fell on extremely hard times (by their own ridiculously lofty standards) in 2008 and 2009 and lost nine combined games, while posting just a 8-8 record in the conference during that span.

That success – or lack thereof – has rumors swirling around the college football world that the 2010 season will be a big one for LSU coach Les Miles, one way or another. Either Miles will return LSU to prominence and prove to his critics the past two years have been a fluke, or the Tigers will continue to be more like the kitty cats in 2010 and Miles will be coaching elsewhere in 2011.

No pressure, coach.

But despite the knife dangling gently over Miles’ head, spring is in the air and the Tigers began spring practices Monday with hopes of overtaking conference rivals Alabama and Florida and returning to the top of the SEC.

Let’s not get it twisted, for that to happen, much improvement will need to be made, because you don’t lose that many games if you’re a dominant team.

Coincidentally enough, most of the answers will need to come on the offensive side of the ball where the team ranked No. 112 in the country out of 120 teams in total offense.

That’s right, No. 112 out of 120 teams. In simple English, if all of the college football offenses played a game of dodge ball together, LSU’s offense would be the short, chubby kid that gets picked close to last.

Yeah, defense wins championships and everything, but the old adage still holds that offense wins games, so there is plenty of work to be done on that side of the ball.

So here is my amateur list of five things the Tigers need to fix and don’t worry Tiger fans, it will be easy to see if these things actually get done, because the team’s spring game is going to take place on March 27, in front of a nationally televised audience on ESPN2.

Again – no pressure, coach.

Offensive Line Improvement

LSU’s offensive line was atrocious in 2009. And that’s me being nice. LSU allowed 35 sacks last season – good enough for dead last in the SEC. The Tigers were also No. 11 (out of 12) in the SEC in rushing offense. If the offensive line is the driving force behind a team’s success, then it’s easy to see why LSU has struggled the past two years, because the line has been flat awful.

Time Management Issues

Something needs to be done here, because it’s painful to watch. Between the team’s time lapses against Ole Miss to the season-long battles the team fought with the play clock, LSU was a hot, steaming mess all season when they tried to battle the clock. Some of these problems will hopefully be alleviated by the team’s hire of Billy Gonzales to serve as the team’s passing game coordinator, but it’s up to everyone involved to get the plays in quicker, so the team can get from Point A to Z, without having to make untimely stops at Points B, D and T along the way.

Better Utilization of Playmakers

The excuse I’ve heard regarding this one is that LSU has lost a lot of players to the NFL, so the team needs time to replenish its talent pool. Well, that’s bologna and I’ll tell you why. A quick peek at Rivals.com shows that LSU has had a national Top 15 recruiting class eight out of past nine years and the Tigers have hauled in six Top 10 classes since 2002. With that being said, I will go out on a limb and say that I don’t think every recruiting analyst is wrong, so I think there is plenty of talent in the locker room. Just a quick peek at the team’s offensive arsenal for 2010 shows that the Tigers have a quarterback (Russell Shepard), a halfback (Spencer Ware) and two receivers (Terrance Toliver and Rueban Randle) who were five-star players coming out of high school. Spread the love and light up the scoreboard. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

Cleanup Pre-snap Penalties

This one sort of goes along with time management, but LSU committed an average of close to seven penalties per game last year. Yuck. But look deeper and you’ll see that of those close to seven infractions per game, the team had only 48.6 penalty yards per game, which means most of the team’s mishaps were 5-yard penalties – AKA pre-snap penalties – AKA drive killers. Just in the team’s game against Florida alone, LSU committed three false start penalties and were offsides five times. Football analysts love to boast that these penalties should never happen, but they sure are commonplace for the Tigers.

Third Down Defense

Everything about LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis’ first year at LSU was fabulous – except his third down defense. The Tigers were No. 10 in the SEC and allowed opponents to pick up 37 percent of their third down tries. That high percentage of conversions created the famous LSU saying called “Third and Chavis,” which the Tigers’ student section would often chant after the opposing team picked up a third down conversion last season. A few small fixes here and there and I’d think this is the most correctable problem on the list.

So as can be seen, there’s a lot to be done and not a whole lot of time to do it in. So Miles and his staff better boogie down and be on the ball, or this spring might be his last at LSU.