Redshirt freshman quarterback Jarrett Lee rolled to his right and threw a crisp bullet pass that landed in the LSU bench on the third offensive play of the Saturday’s game against Florida.No receiver was within 10 yards of Lee’s pass, causing many to believe he was throwing the football away on a third-and-8 play with Florida already leading 7-0.But the play was the result of miscommunication in the huddle between Lee and his intended receiver — a type of small error that junior running back Charles Scott said contributed to LSU’s 51-21 blowout loss.”It was like that all game,” Scott said. “It was either a guy here or a guy there. When you play offense and one guy messes up, it kind of screws up the whole play.”One of the areas where LSU made the most mental mistakes was in the running game, where the Gators limited Scott to just 35 yards on 12 carries. LSU coach Les Miles said each lineman played well, but communication issues didn’t allow them to block as a unit to open holes for Scott.”It just seemed that there was a mistake about once a play,” Miles said. “It was not necessarily any one guy but one guy on every play.”Junior tight end Richard Dickson said LSU’s poor play troubled him more than the final score.”We’re more pissed off than anything,” he said. “Losing is one thing. But playing that bad is another thing. We just need to play much better.”One explanation for why LSU made so many small mistakes may be the crowd noise the 90,684 fans caused in The Swamp.Lee said Florida came out in defensive packages early in the game that were different than what the Tigers had seen on film.The Brenham, Texas, native said after playing in Tiger Stadium, Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium and Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, The Swamp takes the title as the rowdiest.”Auburn was loud, but I thought Florida was louder,” he said. “It made it that much more difficult to talk in the huddle or to make checks at the line of scrimmage.”Scott said he is encouraged about the remainder of the season despite the loss, because he believes the Tigers will have no problems correcting the mishaps they had against Florida.”I think the loss will help us a lot, and that we’ll learn from it,” he said. “We’re going to fix those things and do them better the rest of the season.”Scott, who rushed for more than 100 yards in each of the season’s first four games, said after losing a game he called a “living nightmare,” he was itching to “beat up on somebody” this weekend after being held in check for the first time this season.”We don’t want to feel like this anymore,” he said. “Right now, we just need to play somebody. We need to beat somebody. We need a game, and I wish we played tomorrow. We all want to get back out there to redeem ourselves.”—-Contact Casey Gisclair at [email protected]
Crowd noise plagues Tigers at Florida
By Casey Gisclair
Sports Writer
Sports Writer
October 14, 2008