Life truly does come full circle. Given up for dead after destroying BYU's program, Gary Crowton reemerges and (in my opinion) was the #1 reason LSU won last night. He changed formations almost every play and thoroughly confused Ohio State. The announcer said it best, "Crowton can basically pick and choose who he wants the ball to go to and that player will make a play." The very next play, Flynn throws in the flat to a wide receiver who has 3 Buckeye defensive players all over him....what happens? Neither one makes the tackle and the LSU receiver strolls into the endzone.
What used to be Crowton's downfall became his strength last night. For many years, I begged him to just run a standard offense. He seemed to be confusing his own players and himself when he coached at BYU. He tried trick play after trick play and nothing worked; however, last night he with his many different formations, OSU was the team that seemed lost and out of sync.
Sometimes LSU would hurry to the line and catch them off guard (see 1st touchdown). Other times, they would bunch their formation on short yardage plays and Flynn would get the required yardage everytime.
I was most impressed with Jacob Hester who reminds me a lot of Tom Rathman (Niner running back from the 80s). Hester does everything well. He blocks, catches passes, and hits the hole harder than any running back I've seen in awhile. Dude gets no national press and yet I would love to have that guy on my team. I believe there is a reason that every team he's been on from high school to college was and is a championship team: desire to win, compete, and make your teammates better. That rubs off on everyone and all of a sudden all the players on the team are sacrificing for the betterment of the team.
Look around at all the teams that are constantly winning. There is always at least one Jacob Hester on those teams.
Props to him and special props to Gary Crowton. You get the last laugh. Well done!
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Nice post, Dro. Don't forget about Bo Pellini, though. I thought his decision to start playing man to man on the outside receivers to free up the safeties to help in run support and blitz the quarterback was huge. OSU never really recovered offensively from this defensive adjustment made by LSU and it all went downhill from there.
You're right. I didn't mention Pellini because I thought the press mentioned him enough. He will be good for Nebraska...much better than Callahan was or ever will be.
The game totally switched though when they started blitzing and playing one on one on the outside. Let's face it: The Big Ten is slow and methodical and undermanned across the board.
LSU had already played that game 6 different times this year whereas Ohio State had played JV teams. They couldn't make adjustment because they never had to all year.
Next year will be the same though. The Buckeyes will beat up on the horrible Big 10 teams and once again fool the voters into thinking they are actually good.
This is what happens when you let judges (secretaries, bias coaches) rule your sport: The Russians (OSU) get to compete for the Gold while the Canadiens (USC, Georgia) sit around wondering what happened.
Ok, now you lost me. This apparently is not the blog for me.
USC and Georgia will be 1 and 2 in the preseason poll and it will be their national championship to lose. But Georgia will probably lose to a hack team like South Carolina and USC to a hack team like Stanford (both at home no less).
Leave it to the LAD to be giving props to Crowton. Crowton was good last night because all he had to do was call offensive plays - he didn't have to run the program and he didn't do any recruiting. He also had al the talent in the world (including 4 running backs better than BYU had the entire tme he was there) to run his funky offense.
The problem with that philosophy is that college teams don't play the same schedule. What if Ohio State played in the SEC? Who's to say they wouldn't lose to someone like South Carolina after having to play tough teams week in and week out.
Instead they play absolutely no one all year, lose to the only decent team they play and find themselves playing for the BCS trophy.
The system is clearly flawed. The Colts lost to Tennessee...Dallas lost to Philadelphia. Should they get no opportunity to play in the Super Bowl?
It's not my philosphy it is simply a lack of real sympathy for teams that do control thier own destiny in the current system and then cry when they get left out. A system is a system. Perhaps you and the President of Univ. of Georgia could change the system, but until then it is what it is.
Greg, you may say it is what it is, but that doesn't make it right. I salute the UGA Pres. for trying to make a stand and get things changed so they will be right in the future. Sure, it won't do any good for this year, and he knows that as well as we do. But unless the people with the power in college athletics stand up for what needs to fixed to make this sport what it can be, we will continue to be mired in the worst postseason in all of sports.
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