LSU Football: Ed Orgeron wasn’t happy with Tigers’ offense against UCLA
By Zach Ragan
Not much went right for LSU football on Saturday night in Pasadena.
The Tigers dropped their second straight season-opener, falling to UCLA 38-27.
LSU finished the game with 379 total yards (330 passing yards and 49 rushing yards).
The rushing game was particularly anemic. I know football is turning into a game that is dominated by passing the football, but offenses still have to be able to run the ball to win games (especially in the SEC).
After the game, Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron was unsurprisingly unhappy with the offense. And he wasn’t afraid to point some fingers.
LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron points out offensive issues
Orgeron wasn’t a big fan of some of the things LSU chose to do offensively against UCLA.
And while Orgeron didn’t specifically call out offensive coordinator Jake Peetz, he made it clear that he wants to see some different things on offense in the coming weeks.
Specifically, Orgeron wants LSU to be more diverse in its play-calling.
From 247Sports:
"Orgeron: “We’ve got to be more diverse. We have to have multiple runs with multiple sets, which we didn’t do tonight. We’ve got to get that fixed. It’s going to get fixed immediately.”"
Coach O also feels like the quarterback play has to be better. Orgeron essentially said Max Johnson didn’t play to LSU’s standards.
"Orgeron: “At times he (Johnson) was off. We made some big plays, he threw some balls in the dirt, we missed some plays, then again, hot/cold. He made some good plays, but he wasn’t as consistent as we need as LSU’s quarterback.”"
Orgeron is correct that Johnson wasn’t consistent enough and that LSU’s offense wasn’t diverse enough (only 14 rushing attempts by running backs). But those issues both stem from poor offensive line play. Johnson was never able to get comfortable in the pocket. And UCLA pretty much shut down the Tigers’ running game.
If the Tigers can fix their offensive line issues this week, I think we’ll see a much more efficient offense in the coming weeks.
Next. The 4 reasons LSU lost to UCLA. dark
However, if they can’t fix those issues, it could be a really long season in Baton Rouge.