October 8, 2015
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THURSDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
Denham Springs HS opens up District play with a special Thursday night game. Livingston Parish rival Live Oak HS provides the opposition. Andy Duckworth and yours truly, Jon Fine are on the call. See program information just below.
SPORTSCENTRAL
SportsCentral airs tonight! Steve Johnson and Sid Edwards are scheduled to be joined by players Josh Brown, Mason Evans, Trenton Guay, Josh Herbert, Ben Pezant and Joseph Schopp. Programming information is just below.
BATON ROUGE AREA BROADCASTING SCHEDULE:
Thursday, October 8: 5pm—6pm: SportsCentral… with Sid Edwards and Steve Johnson
Radio Amour 91.9
Thursday, October 8: 6pm: Denham Springs HS vs Live Oak HS
Jon Fine, Andy Duckworth
Fox Sports Radio, 1210AM, Baton Rouge
JonFineProductions.com
SportsRadio 1310 Radio, Lake Charles Programming of Interest (also heard on KEZMOnLine.com):
Friday, October 9: 6:45pm: Sulphur HS vs Brother Martin HS
Bruce Merchant, Clopha Boudreaux
KEZM, 1310AM, Lake Charles
KEZMOnLine.com
Saturday, October 10: 9AM—10AM: All Things Football with Scott Holtzman
Monday, October 12: 8AM—10AM: The Locker Room with John Goodman and Jim Gazzolo
WE THANK YOU FOR DOING YOUR UTMOST TO PATRONIZE SPONSORS OF OUR PROGRAMMING. THIS HELPS US TREMENDOUSLY IN SUSTAINING OUR WEEKLY LINE-UP AND WILL ASSIST US IN ADDING MORE PROGRAMS IN THE FUTURE. KINDLY MAKE AN EFFORT TO LET SPONSORS KNOW YOU HEARD THEIR BUSINESS MENTIONED ON OUR BROADCAST(S).
THE WIZADRY OF OZ
Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High School
For those that bought the hype after the Auburn game, I have news for you. LSU is not an elite football team. The good news, is I don’t believe there is an elite football team in college football this year.
TCU and Baylor will put up huge numbers all year, and one of them will most likely make the playoff, but I don’t believe either team is elite. Ohio State was supposed to be the elite team this year, but has been anything but elite on the field.
Alabama got their wake up call from Ole Miss and is my favorite to win the SEC considering they match up well with their toughest competition remaining on the schedule. Still, I do not see them as an elite team at this time, though they could develop.
As for the Tigers, I have a tough time seeing LSU developing beyond the team they are at this time. LSU cannot get better running the football. They could use more running backs, but they won’t. Even if they did, the other backs would not be more effective than Fournette running 25 times a game.
LSU could develop a short passing game using tight ends and Fournette out the backfield. But they won’t. Many people point to two year ago as evidence as to what LSU can be on offense. Those people aren’t looking at the facts. In 2013, LSU ran the ball 61% of the time, completed 65% of passes, with 22% of the completions to tight ends and running backs. Meanwhile, completions to OBJ and Landry accounted for 72% of LSU’s passing yards.
Compare those numbers to 2015. LSU has run the ball 75% of the time, completed 54% of its passes (even after a horrible week last week), with 18% of the completions to running backs and tight ends.
Before you jump to a conclusion, listen to my conclusion. In 2013, LSU had a quarterback that started in the NFL as a rookie, one of the top receivers in the NFL as a rookie, and the number one receiver for the Dolphins in his second year. LSU is not going to match those numbers. That season is the outlier. Throw it out.
The best case scenario is for this offense to mimic 2011, especially since the personal is much similar with a dual threat quarterback and two good but not great receivers. Though this team is clearly not as good as that one (no other team in LSU history has been for the regular season to be clear). In 2013, LSU ran on 67% of the plays, completed 62% of its passes, with 27% of the completions to running backs and tight ends.
As for the defense, the quality depth just is not there. Consequently, the starters are going to play almost all the snaps in SEC road games and competitive home games. Since that is almost every remaining game, I expect LSU to be good enough on defense when it needs to be until November. In November, I can see the defense looking a bit worn down.
Don’t get me wrong. I am sticking with my 9-2 prediction (10-2 before we lost the McNeese win). The league is very weak this year, and LSU is a good team. Not great and certainly not elite.
As for this week, you should fully expect to see LSU play very similar at South Carolina as they did at Mississippi State. The scenario is almost identical. LSU is on the road. There is confidence in the defense, Fournette, and the offensive line. There is little confidence otherwise based on recent performance (poor play against E. Michigan and rainout against McNeese). LSU will play everything very conservatively. Overall LSU that will force South Carolina to make plays to win instead of capitalize on LSU mistakes. South Carolina is not good enough to do that, so LSU should win by one to two scores.
One last piece of advice on the Tigers. Stop listening to national media and people that spend their time worrying about what might happen. LSU fans have not had a football player like Fournette since I am guessing Billy Cannon (I don’t know since I wasn’t around then). Enjoy every game he plays as a Tiger, and don’t worry about anything but that.
HEY REF
Time just seems to be flying by so fast as the high school football season has hit the half way mark and things are just gonna get better and better in the final five weeks. Districts matchups are what really counts to most fans since trying to figure out these confusing POWER RATINGS takes a rocket scientist to make sense of it all.
I will go on the record and say without hesitation I’m not a fan of the way in which the LHSAA chooses its football pairings. One category is points scored
For the life of me that’s one thing that needs to be eliminated. Here’s an instance in a game I worked; Team “A” is ahead 56–0 late in the fourth quarter. This coach was empting his bench and playing mostly second stringers and some third.
The opposing coach followed suit and had also put in his JV’s and some 9th graders to get a taste of varsity game action. With just over two minutes left in the game most of the starters from team “A” had taken their shoulder pads off and just wore their game jerseys. Team “B” had a first down on their 20 yard line after a touchback from the previous kickoff. We played a couple downs but on third down “B’s” quarterback fumbled the snap and as luck would have it the team with 56 points in the bank recovers at the 15 yard line.
No problem, I thought, as I grabbed “A’s” football and was getting ready for the customary “kneel down” to run the final few seconds off the clock. To my surprise and shock team “A” calls not one but both of their final time-outs to allow the first stringers to suit back up. As I’m supposed to do during time outs I stand next to the home team while a time out runs its course so that I can inform them when it’s time for them to get back on the field.
What I hear this coach tell his team just isn’t the kinda thing that high school sports are all about. He demands they take the ball in for six points and nothing else will be to his liking. So as the players get into the huddle I ask the coach if he was serious and he just looks me in the eyes and says “I wouldn’t have used both timeouts to get my starters suited back up if I wasn’t serious”. Team “B” doesn’t substitute after the time outs so I’m just watching in disbelief that this is really happening! Well it was happening and to add insult on top of everything else with just 29 seconds to go the first play is a pass into the endzone for a touchdown.
This isn’t the end of the story by no means because to my horror this coach has a card up his sleeve that he’s yet to play. I just can’t believe my eyes as team “A” goes for and is successful in their two point conversion. The final reads 64-0… Just what would make a coach do something I find unacceptable at any level of play? His quote in the paper went something like he wasn’t trying to run the score up it was that the other team’s defense just couldn’t stop his team. He boasted that he’d had a lot of his second and third teams playing in the fourth quarter and even they were able to score points.
Well, I’m sorry coaches because this sort of thing shouldn’t be happening in high school sports. I was talking to some other coaches during the following week and they explained to me that the playoff system being used in picking playoff teams gives extra points for points scored in games by common opponents. If that’s one category being used by the LHSAA in extending a playoff invitation then they should eliminate using it.
Yes, there needs to be some way in comparing what teams do against common foes but when a coach intentionally runs the score up on another team just to better his playoff seeding then it’s a system that needs fixing cause this sure is a broken system in “Hey Ref’s” world. No system that rewards a team points and/or a better seeding by embarrassing and insulting kids isn’t why amateurs play sports.
We see too often many adults reliving their childhoods through their kids. I find it disgusting when a coach exploits a team when they know their team is much more superior to another team. We’ve lost sight that high school sports are meant to be played by kids and not to feed a coach’s ego. I believe that high school sports should be there to build character and class. Wining is nice and we should play hard and fair to win. But if you win without character and class then you and your victories are classless.
Till next week…
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