Les Miles' Achilles' Heel of No Star QB Keeping LSU out of NCAA Title Discussion

LSU played with one hand tied behind its back in 2014, and that one hand happened to belong to its quarterback, which made for some trouble for the Tigers.      

It was excruciating trouble, actually. The Tigers had the top-rated defense in the SEC and still lost five games. They were 14th out of 14 SEC teams through the air in the regular season, gaining just 1,967 yards with a muted passing game that looked like it belonged in the year 1967.

So the familiar refrain around LSU, the two words you hear most often:

If only…

If only LSU had a quarterback it could trust.

LSU would be a completely different adversary for the rest of the SEC, and for TCU, and for Ohio State, and for any other national championship contender…if only it had a quarterback it could trust.

SEC passing	Yards	Cmp%	TD-INT
LSU passing leaders	Yards	Cmp%	TD-INT
1.  Texas A&M	3,677	64.7	35-14
2.  Alabama	3,653	64.6	30-7
3.  South Carolina	3,377	58.8	26-11
4.  Ole Miss	3,307	61.6	24-12
5.  Mississippi St.	3,196	61.3	28-11
6.  Kentucky	2,774	56.4	14-11
7.  Auburn	2,768	62.1	21-7
8.  Tennessee	2,736	61.3	21-13
9.  Missouri	2,551	52.8	23-11
10.  Georgia	2,399	68.1	23-5
11.  Arkansas	2,284	55.7	19-6
12.  Vanderbilt	2,149	50.4	13-19
13.  Florida	1,988	52.7	16-13
14.  LSU	1,967	50.0	16-9
Anthony Jennings	1,611	48.9	11-7
Brandon Harris	452	55.6	6-2

Too often in 2014, it was all on the Tigers' running game to produce offense, and an unbalanced offense is doomed in the SEC.

But just when you start to ask, "How can a program with this much money and these kinds of natural resources in recruiting not have a quarterback you can trust in the last two minutes?," you look up and see Florida struggled at quarterback, Alabama had to be saved by an unlikely hero in Blake Sims, Ole Miss had intermittent issues at quarterback and Texas A&M collapsed midseason around its quarterback, and you realize there is a whole lot of misery going on.

LSU tried to plug in a true freshman quarterback and then a raw sophomore. It had double the misery.

"The physical attributes are easy to measure," said David Morris, the founder of QB Country, which does year-round training and development of quarterbacks in the South. "What is harder to measure is poise and the ability to perform under pressure and what kind of leader a guy is. Those kinds of attributes are as important, or more important, than the physical attributes. That's what makes evaluating quarterbacks so hard. It is hard to measure the intangibles that are so integral.

"You can't put a star on that."

Were Brandon Harris and Anthony Jennings too young?

"Possibly," Morris said. "I know this: It's way, way too early to be jumping on a true freshman quarterback."

Does that make LSU fans feel better? Probably not, because in the Les Miles Era, LSU has recruited and signed just one quarterback who has been drafted into the NFL. There have been way more misses than the hit of Zach Mettenberger. The LSU fan is right to be worried that Harris and/or Jennings will be another uphill walk. They see yet another learning curve with young LSU quarterbacks and an 18-wheeler coming around the bend to wipe the Tigers off the road to Atlanta.

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

I was in the end zone during overtime when LSU was trying to match Alabama in Death Valley on Nov. 8. The sophomore Jennings tried to win the game with throw-them-open flares to the end zone. Bad reads. Bad calls or bad checks. I had a better chance of catching those throws, because Alabama defenders made sure LSU receivers could not get their hands in the air to snatch.

LSU's offense that night consisted of trying to knock down the Hoover Dam with flesh. Leonard Fournette, the Tigers' wondrous running back, only managed 79 yards on 21 attempts against Alabama's front.

David Feaster, the high school coach of LSU's current QB project, Harris, is undoubtedly worried LSU will misfire with Harris, who was a superstar in high school and has so far been less than a star at LSU. Feaster, the head coach at Parkway High School, told a Louisiana radio station that he begged Harris, a true freshman, to transfer in December to a junior college to start over because LSU was mucking up his career.

Feaster then backtracked in the media.

"He's right and I'm wrong," he said, according to Ross Dellenger of The Advocate. "But I just can't stand another season like this past one."

Feaster did not return a call for comment. Harris, meanwhile, is still at LSU.

Then there was a high-flying rumor that Everett Golson would leave Notre Dame and end up at LSU for the 2015 season. 

Hasn't happened.

And for 2016? The Tigers do have a commitment from Feleipe Franks, from Crawfordville, Fla., who is 247Sports' top-rated 2016 dual-threat quarterback in the country. He can run and throw and do all things, which is what they have said about a long line of LSU quarterbacks, including dual-threats Jordan Jefferson and Russell Shepard.

Also potentially in next year's recruiting class is Shea Patterson, from Shreveport, La., a 5-star prospect and 247Sports' third-ranked pro-style quarterback. Shea's brother Sean Jr. is an offensive assistant on the LSU staff, for now, and the Tigers are considered among the front-runners for Shea, along with Ole Miss, Alabama, USC and Auburn. But Shea Dixon of 247Sports reported that Sean Jr. is taking a job at Ole Miss, and, well, you can imagine what would happen after that.

"I spent an hour with Franks recently and watched the film, studied him, and I gave him 5 stars," CBS recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said. "He has every physical attribute you could want in a quarterback. He is big and can run and has an arm. This could be the key guy for LSU. He told me he is 100 percent committed to LSU, but you saw from this past signing day how many quarterbacks flipped.

"Patterson is very good, too, but I don't think LSU is going to get both of them."

The Tigers are also after Dwayne Haskins Jr., of Potomac, Md., who announced on Twitter that LSU was his 38th offer. Haskins is rated the No. 5 pro-style quarterback in the 2016 class and is being pursued by two Michigan men, Miles and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh.

Zadock Dinkelmann has also verbally committed to the Tigers, according to the San Antonio Express-News, but LSU will have to wait for him. Zadock committed in the eighth grade and is in the 2018 class. Just finishing his freshman year in high school, he is the nephew of former BYU star and Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer.

This quarterback quandary at LSU is a big deal because the Tigers are stockpiled with talent, led by the bruising, fast running back Fournette. LSU kept some offensive linemen it might have lost to early departure for the NFL draft. The holdovers apparently felt there is value in having an offensive line coach like Jeff Grimes, who was O-line coach for Auburn's 2010 national championship. That unit did not have an NFL-ready blocker and still excelled. LSU, which lost 16 underclassmen to the draft the previous two years, lost just three in January. The Tigers are set up…except at quarterback.

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

They need to hit on one of these kids. I wanted to talk to Miles about the quarterback situation at LSU, but he didn't return the call. I imagine Miles and offensive coordinator Cam Cameron have been plotting all winter on what they are going to do with Harris and Jennings in spring ball.

One suggestion: Keep an ice machine humming on the sidelines for their shoulders and elbows and make these guys throw pass after pass in the 15 practices and spring game between March 7 and April 18.

Here is the rest of the story about LSU's quarterbacks: LSU played for the national championship with an extraordinary team in 2011 with Jefferson, who was not the All-American everyone presumed. The Tigers stepped back to 10-3 records in both 2012 and 2013…with Mettenberger as the quarterback. You see, a quarterback isn't everything, but he means a lot.

Miles is a Michigan man. We know that. A good guy, too. A winner at LSU. The quarterback thing might be more of an SEC thing than an LSU thing. The SEC just does not turn out many big-time throwers. But you wonder if, sooner or later, the fans get on the Michigan Man and want him to be the Michelin Man, leaving town on four tires.

The state of Louisiana is pushing a lot of talent toward Miles, and it wants him to do something big with it. And to do something big, you need a really good quarterback.

Ray Glier covers college football for Bleacher Report.