Saturday night’s win against Western Kentucky should have been a shining moment for the LSU football team, which now boasts a 10-0 record for the first time since 1958.
Instead, the evening will be remembered as one of Les Miles’ biggest coaching gaffes of his career.
Miles started senior quarterback Jordan Jefferson for the first time this season and played him nearly the entire game. Fellow senior signal caller Jarrett Lee didn’t get a snap until the fourth quarter was under way.
In LSU’s 9-6 win against Alabama on Nov. 5, Miles needed to bring in Jefferson to relieve Lee. Lee had thrown two ugly interceptions and appeared to be rattled by the Crimson Tide defense. It was the right call to give Jefferson most of the snaps in Tuscaloosa.
But it wasn’t on Saturday.
Western Kentucky should have been a game for both quarterbacks to boost their confidence and get in a rhythm for the home stretch of the regular season.
Jefferson needed to work on running a normal offense that wasn’t completely reliant on read options and designed quarterback runs. Lee needed help to regain the confidence he had for the season’s first eight games.
Instead of helping both quarterbacks get in a groove for Ole Miss next week and the season finale against Arkansas, Miles exposed one quarterback’s weaknesses and undercut the confidence of the other.
Jefferson still can’t make the check-down reads necessary to move the ball with any regularity on a respectable defense. His inability to make decisions in the passing game also led to a safety when he was called for intentional grounding in the end zone.
Lee needed to get back on the saddle and make those quick reads that can’t be simulated in practice to get back the mojo he’d developed in throwing 13 touchdowns to only one interception in the games leading up to Alabama.
Since Saturday’s game, there have been rumors that Lee was being punished for skipping class. Also floating around is a rumor that Lee sustained an ankle injury against the Crimson Tide and wasn’t 100 percent healthy.
Both rumors seem completely bogus.
If Lee was in fact skipping class, why did he play at all? If he did not fulfill his duty as a student, he should have been forced to sit out the entire game. It teaches no lesson to Lee, or anyone else on the team, to just suspend him three quarters against a scrub opponent.
Lee could not have been too injured, either, considering he was running designed option plays and scrambling when there weren’t receivers open.
It seemed more that Miles simply relegated Lee to the backup role after one bad performance.
If that is the case, it’s completely hypocritical of Miles.
Jefferson was immediately platooned by Miles once he was cleared of felony charges in his August bar brawl. He didn’t play only in mop-up duty. In fact, Jefferson played in the first quarter of his first game back.
Jefferson made a mistake, Lee took over and then Jefferson was immediately given another chance.
Lee had a bad day against Alabama, Jefferson took over and Lee is now relegated to only playing in garbage time.
Some things just don’t add up.
And the worst part of all for Tiger fans is that this decision may cost LSU its shot at a national title.
Neither Jefferson or Lee alone can win the championship. They had developed a system where they both added a dimension to the offense that made it a two-headed monster.
Now Miles seems to have taken half the guessing game away.
The two quarterback system had been working to perfection. Abandoning it now could be a very costly mistake.
 
Rob Landry is a 23-year-old mass communication senior from Mandeville. Follow him on Twitter @RobLandry85.
 
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Contact Rob Landry at [email protected]