Tiger Report Card: Week One…Where's My Red Pen?

Well…a win is a win as they say, and Tiger Nation will take it, but a few red flags are still waving.

First off, hats off to the Washington Huskies.

They played a solid, tough game. If not for a fumble here, a missed field goal there…they would have upset the mighty LSU.

Truth is…LSU got outworked, outplayed, and out coached…on both sides of the ball.

There’s no question about some positives in the game with Jordan Jefferson managing the game with key touchdown passes to Terrance Toliver, but if you take away the score, the Huskies beat LSU.

While watching the game…I found myself texting friends in disbelief as to how Washington had four yards shy of 300 by halftime…”Where’s the defense!!??”

Side note…to the family in apartment 20...please forgive me, I didn’t mean to scare you.

But…I was really impressed with the Dawgs.

If you put USC uniforms on the Huskies…it would have made more sense. Maybe LSU would have played different?

We’ll never know…but one thing to know for sure is that Sarkisian is the real deal…and if only one game gives us a glimpse of the future…he’s on track to do some great things at Washington if he’s able to keep up this type of coaching and recruiting.

Bottom line? The storyline from this game was not that LSU won…but that Washington gave a heck of an effort…and had a legitimate opportunity to win. That’s not making me feel all that ‘peachy’ as a Tiger fan right about now.

So…without further ado…my grades for the Tigers in week one.

Offense:

As I said, not a horrible job overall, but the offensive line got worked.

I was really, really surprised that the o-line didn’t win more battles up front. Charles Scott did not look like Charles Scott. The ‘Truck’ looked like he was running up hill.

Of course, not much room given to run can do that to you.

Play calling was so vanilla…almost predictable. Good to see Tolliver get to the end zone for two touchdowns.

GRADE: C

 

Defense:

To me…this was the most anticipated aspect of the game that I wanted to see.

I just knew that the Tigers would be flying around…gobbling-up those Huskies at will. After the first possession…reality came crashing down on me and I realized the defense looks like it picked up where it left off…well not the G Tech game…but all the others.

I was very disappointed in the fact that LSU gave up a total of 478 yards of total offense to the Huskies.

Uh? I thought we made some changes in that department?

Apparently, not everyone got the memo because the defense looked pretty poor, and I was sitting there thinking, ”is Washington this much better or is LSU still not that good?”

I think it’s somewhere in the middle.

LSU will get embarrassed again this year if the defense doesn’t get nastier…end of story.

GRADE: C-

 

Special Teams:

Special Teams looked great, crisp, and hungry.  The only scare came with a punt that was almost blocked, but overall did a great job.

GRADE: A

To keep things in perspective, by no means should Tiger Nation head to the balconies to jump just yet. 

New coaches take time and maybe this game is the wake-up call for all, but just so you know, I’m sure ‘Chief’ John Chavis will be up late tonight for the rest of the week trying to figure out how to make some much needed adjustments.

A note to the Tiger defense, I’m not sure where you went, but can you please come back?