No excuses here. We had all the opportunities in the world to win it. We were up 27-14 and gave it away. Flynn is at best an average passer, though he did well to convert some big third downs with his legs. The overthrows downfield have GOT to stop, though.
The simple fact that Early Doucet is out is no excuse for the lack of hands displayed by our wideouts. Brandon LaFell in particular has a boatload of work to do before he's ever reliable. We just cannot win consistently with the lack of reliability in our passing game at present.
Playcalling was baffling today. A week after our staff was lauded for a masterful job down the stretch against the Gators, they ought to be questioned for leaving a hot Charles Scott more or less completely out of the game - for an obviously hurting Jacob Hester - after a stellar first half. Why we saw zero Ryan Perrilloux in the fourth quarter and OT is beyond me. Youthful inexperience, perhaps he wouldn't have been able to protect the ball? Flynn's underthrow of LaFell 35 yards downfield didn't look like much ball protection to me.
Our defense is clearly overrated. We had some injuries late but they moved it on us all day. We came up big at home last week when it mattered, but if a unit can't put it together against good offenses on the road, it's not worthy of much praise. It's still a very good defense, just not remotely comparable to the all-time great LSU defenses, or at this point even other defenses that are out there this year (Ohio State, for instance).
Thankfully, this is a year in which all kinds of teams are going down left and right, so it seems likely a one-loss team could end up in the national title game. With Auburn, 'Bama, a tough-in-Oxford Ole Miss team, Arkansas, and a potential SEC Championship game left for us to play though, it's tough to envision us making it out without at least one more defeat if we don't get a number of things in order. That said, this was a team that just last week appeared to most observers to be unquestionably the #1 team in the country. All isn't lost after one week. We knew a trip like this to face a pretty tough team, the week after such a grueling victory, could end in disappointment. On the whole, this isn't a horrible loss. It exposed things that we've known need to be fixed (WR hands, QB downfield accuracy) and things that heretofore haven't been problems (front seven pressure on the QB).
How we respond to this next week when we host Auburn will say a lot about the true caliber of this team. I hate Auburn. Geaux Tigers!