LSU junior quarterback Jordan Jefferson has his starting job for at least another week, coach Les Miles said at his weekly press luncheon Monday.
 
Jefferson has not thrown a touchdown pass or eclipsed the 100-yard passing mark since LSU’s 30-24 victory against North Carolina, yet when Miles was asked point-blank if Jefferson will start against Tennessee, he briefly paused and answered, “Yes.”
 
Jefferson most recently recorded just 75 yards through the air and two interceptions against West Virginia. He was also sacked twice and has been sacked five times through four games.
 
Jefferson was repeatedly booed against West Virginia as pass after pass fell incomplete, and he struggled to gain substantial yardage on option plays.
 
Junior Jarrett Lee sits in the backup quarterback spot, and Miles said it remains a week-by-week decision about how to involve Lee.
 
“You have to use the strengths of the players on the field,” Miles said. “We look at the opportunities to play Jarrett Lee … It’s never going to be necessarily the fact that the other guy is just doing poorly. It’s with the complement of the efforts Jarrett Lee has.”
 
Miles said he is focused on developing “a dominant offense” to complement the emerging, forceful LSU defense.
 
“I want a dominant offense, one that has the ability to run it and throw it and the ability to attack every situation, and that’s not going to change,” Miles said. “[In the last four games] that defense has played so dominantly that the offense did not necessarily need to exhibit every ability it has.”
 
A startling statistic from Saturday’s game was the 120 yards LSU racked up on 12 penalties, including five 15-yard infractions.
 
Junior cornerback Patrick Peterson, who won his second Southeastern Conference Special Teams Player of the Week honor on Monday, was flagged for excessive celebration after striking the Heisman Trophy pose in the end zone.
 
Miles said the last time he saw the Heisman pose was by Desmond Howard in the press box at the 1991 Michigan-Ohio State game. Howard won the Heisman Trophy that year.
 
“It appeared to me that the difference was Patrick Peterson put the ball down and did it without the ball,” Miles said. “I am for not taunting an opponent, and I don’t know if that really fits what happened here in either category, but if the official thought so, then I stand by him, and I coach my guy not to do it anymore.”
 
 
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