9 Tigers headed to pro ranks
July 16, 2013
E.D. White getting field turf
July 16, 2013
Would I be offending anyone in our reading audience if I went out on a limb this week and said that this was the most miserable time of the year?
Let me tell a brief story to explain why.
I got off work one day this past week, got into my car, turned the key, started the engine and looked at the bottom right corner my sizzling dashboard. The number that stared back at me was truly depressing: 107 degrees Fahrenheit.
This temperature was obviously an exaggeration, as my car was positioned directly in the sun at the time of the reading. As I glided across the road on my way home, it pushed down to its final resting point at 94 degrees – still well too hot for my liking.
When I got out of my car on this day, I ate dinner, showered and was in the dream position for any male – nestled on a recliner chair with remote in hand and the clock right at 7 p.m.
It was time to watch some sports – sike.
As I flipped through the channels, a staunch realization came to my attention – the dog days of summer are officially here.
This is that queasy, wretched time of the year where basketball is complete, football hasn’t yet started and there is absolutely nothing to watch on the tube besides baseball.
It’s pretty miserable – the worst time of the year to do this job.
So with nothing substantial to talk about, I will dedicate this Casey’s Corner to a subject very near and dear to my heart: LSU football.
With an August 31 kickoff rolling right around the corner, there are officially just 45 days before the Tigers’ season opening tilt with TCU in Dallas, Texas.
Many LSU fans are anxious – downright giddy for the start of another football year.
As for me? I am a bit nervous.
My alma mater has quite a bit of question marks to answer before they begin their new season.
Last year’s football season was a very successful one for the Tigers.
Take away a one-minute stretch in both the Alabama and Clemson games and the Tigers arguably were the best team in the country.
In fact, had LSU closed the deal and finished its game with the Tide, it likely would have been the Tigers who would have earned the right to lace Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship Game.
But this year’s LSU team is completely different than last year’s group thanks to a slew of underclassmen who left the program early to enter the NFL Draft.
Their departures will test the Tigers’ young talent – something that should always be a cause for concern in the brutal and unforgiving SEC.
Offensively, the Tigers don’t worry me very much.
Zach Mettenberger is back for his senior season, and the Tigers return a slew of halfbacks and receivers to make the offense lethal.
With first-year offensive coordinator Cam Cameron calling the shots, I expect LSU’s offense to be more balanced – something it greatly lacked in the past few seasons.
Cameron has done a solid job offensively every place he’s been.
There’s no reason to suspect things will be any different at LSU.
There are a few patches that need to be filled along the Tigers’ offensive line before the season begins, but with Greg Studrawa back coaching the team’s offensive line full-time, I expect to see enhanced play from that group up-front.
The biggest challenges that I see for LSU will come along the defense.
LSU needs to replace more than half its defensive line from last year’s unit that boasted NFL names like Barkevious Mingo and Sam Montgomery.
Anthony Johnson will be back and should be a beast in the middle. But it’s hard to replace depth, and that’s exactly what the team will be asked to do up front.
At the linebacker position, the story is the same, as the Tigers will have to replace Kevin Minter – an All-Everything backer from the 2012 squad.
But talent exists up and down the LSU roster – a group that included Patterson’s Lorenzo Phillips and Thibodaux’s Trey Granier.
LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis loves linebackers, and I have no doubt that the Tigers will be more than steady at that position.
The secondary may not be quite as sturdy, as LSU will have to replace Eric Reid and Tharold Simon from a unit that struggled to defend the pass already in 2012.
I know stats say otherwise, but in the back-half of the year, Alabama, Ole Miss and Clemson all had major success through the air against the Tigers.
Without Reid and Simon, youngsters will have to step up. The players filling the voids are highly touted recruits.
But that doesn’t always translate to success at this level of competition.
More important than offense and defense is special teams.
The Tigers lost both their punter and kicker following the 2013 season. That may sound insignificant, but a big reason for LSU’s success in recent years was due to dominance in special teams.
The replacements looked shaky in the spring. If that doesn’t get fixed, it could cost the Tigers a game or two in the new season.
I’m not trying to be a naysayer or a doom and gloom prognosticator, but with TCU, Georgia, Florida, Texas A&M, Alabama and upstarts like Ole Miss and Arkansas on the schedule, the Tigers don’t have much margin for error if they hope to make a push for the national title.
With many holes to fill, it’ll take a lot of work for LSU to get where fans expect them to go.
Good thing they have 45 days to work all of the kinks out.
LSU’s football team gets ready to take the field in Tiger Stadium prior to a game this past season. With several underclassmen gone from the program and off to the NFL Draft, Casey Gisclair wonders how LSU will fare in the new season
