LSU is looking to move forward after a 30-point blowout in its Southeastern Conference opener against Mississippi State on Saturday.
With two non-conference games in the next two weeks, the Tigers have the opportunity to fix the abundance of penalties and discipline issues that plague the team.
In the first three games of the season, LSU has committed 30 penalties for 272 yards, an average of almost 91 penalty yards per game.
Senior quarterback Danny Etling said many players came in Sunday morning after the loss to study the tape and see what went wrong.
“We really hurt ourselves with penalties,” Etling said. “I brought the receivers in and watched the film. We just wanted to correct some mistakes.”
Senior receiver DJ Chark was called for two penalties against Mississippi State including a holding call which negated a 13 yard touchdown run by sophomore receiver Derrick Dillon.
Chark said an area he needs to work on is in the blocking game.
The receivers are taught to block on the inside and drive but disengage when a defender starts to break away.
“Maybe I didn’t disengage quick enough,” Chark said. “So we have to just work on drills and see how they want me to attack that situation.”
Chark had a touchdown of his own called back on the Tigers’ first drive of the game. The Tigers were penalized for offensive pass interference that erased Chark’s 67 yard touchdown.
Chark said there were times in the first half where LSU was building momentum, but the momentum was halted “every time” by a penalty.
“You can’t do that in football,” Chark said. “Sometimes we weren’t at the right spot. We also had a few catches that didn’t count because of penalties.”
Etling noticed on the film that the offense was never in sync with mistakes being made across the board.
“As a collective group, there would be spurts where one group wouldn’t do their job,” Etling said. “So we couldn’t get it all together at one time like we wanted too.”
Another player in attendance for the film session was junior guard Garrett Brumfield. Brumfield noted numerous problems the offensive line struggled with in the game.
“We obviously don’t feel quite happy about what happened,” Brumfield said. “Being on the same page, making sure we’re locked down as far as assignments and adapt to the different situations.”
Coach Ed Orgeron said discipline has been an issue on both sides of the ball. Orgeron was not happy with the preparation in team drills last week leading up to the game.
“One thing that I will demand and we will get better, in our team’s periods,” Orgeron said. “Our team periods on Tuesday and Wednesday wasn’t as sharp as they need to be, and obviously affected our play.”
Sophomore linebacker Devin White said the defensive side of the ball has a lot to work on with discipline being a point of focus. White led the Tigers in tackles against Mississippi State with 11 and also added one and a half tackles for a loss.
“Every position you have one of the best coaches teaching you technique,” White said of defensive coordinator Dave Aranda and his defensive assistants. “We just have to be disciplined with our eyes.”
Etling now has his eyes set on a matchup with Syracuse, and putting the loss to Mississippi State behind him while not forgetting the reason for the loss.
“We’ve started on Syracuse,” Etling said. “Just so we can get a head start. Once we get the game plan we can go over it more and more. I’m going to put more emphasis on myself to come in here and work harder with those guys.”
