9:17 – LSU’s time of possession in the first half. Now, I believe TOP is one of the more overrated stats in football, but this is just ridiculous. North Texas had the ball for nearly two-thirds of the first half. Really, what this meant is that LSU scored really quickly and when there was no quick score, LSU threw a lot of incompletions.
0 – Sacks allowed. Second straight game without allowing a sack. OK, it’s just App State and North Texas, but the line has given our quarterbacks plenty of time to throw their poorly timed passes. Sorry, bad vibes.
163 – Trindon Holliday’s return yards. We have found our punt returning, and really, it was a pretty obvious choice. Really fast guy with good hands? Why wasn’t he the guy earlier? Even throwing out the 92 yard touchdown return, which was pretty awesome, Holliday had 71 yards on 3 returns, for an average of 23.7. Which is still really good. It wasn’t just one great return. He did it all night.
2 – Punts inside the 20. The punting game is one of the big concerns of this season, and Dalfrey had two nice directional punts and no touchbacks. Field position is going to be a big deal this season as LSU breaks in a quarterback and relies on the defense to win games. Long punts are nice, and Dalfrey booted a 46 yarded, but those coffin corner punts are huge. That’s a good sign going forward.
3 – Snaps taken by Jefferson, burning his redshirt. I’m completely mystified why he came in to take those meaningless snaps in the last minute of play. There was no benefit to it. I’m a big Miles supporter, but I do think he has mismanaged the quarterback situation early this year. This is just another instance of the general confusion concerning our quarterbacks. What is the plan?