MTSU: The Awakening

Ryan Perrilloux has a very bright future at LSU. His present is not too bad either, and he's getting great experience to help him for when he has to lead this team through a real test. Hopefully that's not next week, as I'd much rather have Flynn available to play against the Gamecocks, who I think are a pretty good football team.

But back to Perrilloux. His line according to ESPN is 20 for 26, 298 yards passing, 3 touchdowns, and 1 interception along with 8 rushes for 37 yards. That would give him a one-game GeauxTuscaloosa Quarterback Productivity Index of 10.74 yards/play, good for 2nd place on the week behind Tim Tebow. Incidentally, because Perrilloux not has extensive statistics and has been the primary QB in a game, he can now be ranked in the SEC GTQBPI standings. He is currently ranked #1 with a 12.15 yards/play GTQBPI. Tim Tebow is 2nd with 12.07 yards/play.

Granted, the entire Florida offense runs through Tebow, and Ryan has gotten most of his stats against MTSU.

I didn't watch any of the game, because of the aforementioned wedding reception in Jackson, Mississippi. I managed to listen to the first LSU drive and the final quarter on the radio. How impressive is this team? Well, last night's 44 points represented the lowest offensive output of the season, and we did it with our backup quarterback and without our #1 receiver. All the while we've given up a total of 7 points on the entire season.

Got that? Our lowest offensive point total for a single game is more than 6 times the total number of points we've given up the entire season. Auburn's offense gave up as many points yesterday as our whole team has given up ALL SEASON.

Think about what it takes to accomplish that. It requires performance by all three phases of the game. First and foremost, your defense has to be outstanding to give up only 7 points in 3 games. Second, your offense can't commit turnovers deep in your own territory, and we have not. In fact, last night's game saw us commit our first two turnovers of the season, and only one put MTSU in good field position, but the defense held. Third, you can't give up big returns on special teams. Fourth, with the blowouts we've had, even your backups have to play well to avoid giving up points, and they have. The backup defense hasn't given up a point, and the backup offense hasn't committed a turnover.

So, let's give out our congratulations.

• Congratulations to Ryan Perrilloux for getting his first college start and playing very well.
• Congratulations to Demetrius Byrd for catching his first touchdown pass of his career.
• Congratulations to Jared Mitchell for having the biggest game of his career, catching 6 passes for 82 yards while taking on a bigger role in the absence of Early Doucet.
• Congratulations to Richard Murphy for scoring his first career touchdown.
• Congratulations to Ricky Dixon for catching his first pass (for 9 yards).
• Congratulations to Andrew Hatch for getting his first game action at quarterback.

I'm still wondering what happened to Early Doucet. Rumors are it is a groin injury of uncertain severity, but he was up and walking around at the game. Hopefully he and Matt Flynn will be back at full strength against a solid South Carolina team.

If I have any concerns about this game, it is that for the second consecutive game, a running QB was able to move the ball. Tyrod Taylor led Virginia Tech to the only points that have been scored against LSU this season, and Dwight Dasher moved the ball (albeit against the 2nd string) better than the starter did, and ended up as his team's leading rusher. This is not a concern going against Blake Mitchell and South Carolina, b a certain Mr. Tebow is coming to town a few weeks. Tebow is a lot better than Dwight Dasher. Bo Pelini is going to have to figure out how to make this defense account for a running quarterback a little better.

Game Day: MTSU

OK, it's Game Day again, this time for the Blue Raiders of MTSU. This will be a first for GeauxTuscaloosa, a football game that I will not be seeing. As explained earlier in the week, I will not be able to be home for this game. I'll be at a wedding for a friend. Yes, it's a friend who isn't interested in football.

I won't be able to listen to much of it on the radio, but I may be able to catch the second half on the way home. That means there won't be any "First Replay" or "Second Replay" posts. I'll have to figure out other things to talk about.

I'll also miss all of the second most interesting game in the SEC this week: Alabama vs. Arkansas. I said we'd find out more about Bama with their matchup against Vandy, and we did. We found out that Bama is a legitimate bowl team who is a threat to beat any team on their schedule. This week, we will find out even more. We'll find out if they're a legitimate threat in the SEC West, or are they just spoilers trying to get to the Music City Bowl.

So, here's my schedule of the day:

Now to 11:30am: Avoid GameDay on ESPN like the plague. Do some errands. Walk the dog. There is no interesting 11:00am game, so skip that.

11:30-2:30pm: Mississippi State at Auburn: Here in Tuscaloosa, sports talk radio has been absolutely dominated by criticism of Auburn this week. The Auburn fans are very upset at how bad their team has looked the first two weeks. I think highly of Tommy Tuberville's coaching abilities, but there is no one to blame but him for the fact that Auburn has such a poor offensive line and a lack of playmaking wide receivers. He's been recruiting and coaching these guys for their entire careers, and if they didn't recruit good receivers and offensive linemen 3 and 4 years ago such that he does not have that wave of juniors and seniors ready to take the reins of the offense, that's his own fault. Auburn fans are right to criticize him for it.

If you're 7 years into your tenure as coach and a true freshman is starting on the offensive line, either that freshman must be incredible or you have a lot to answer for. It looks like Tubby has a lot to answer for.

With such an inexperienced offense, this is a team that is likely to improve considerably over the course of the season, but for right now they're vulnerable, and it's my conclusion from observing these teams that MSU matches up pretty well with Auburn. They have a pretty good defensive line that can take advantage of Auburn's inexperienced offensive front and a very good left tackle who may be able to neutralize Auburn's best player, Quentin Groves. If Michael Henig can avoid the mistakes that doomed them against LSU, they have a shot to win this game.

If MSU wins, it's going to be a VERY interesting week in Alabama.

2:30-4:30, Tennessee at Florida. This is a very interesting game, because we don't really know how good Florida is. They've beaten up on some weak teams early in the year, but haven't faced a real test. Then again, we don't know how good Tennessee is either. Their defense certainly looked very vulnerable against Cal, and now they're missing a starting cornerback to injury.

I think Tennessee will get its points. The questions are

1. Can Florida's inexperienced and untested defense hold Tennessee's offense to a reasonable number of points, giving its offense a chance to win the game?
2. Has Tennessee's suspect defense improved as a result of its embarrassment against Cal enough to hold Tebow and company to a reasonable point total to give Lamarcus Coker and Erik Ainge a chance to win?

4:30-7:00pm: Drive to Jackson, Mississippi. I don't know what, if anything will be on the radio.

7:00pm-9:00pm or so: Attend wedding reception: The wedding itself is a small, very private family affair to which I am not invited (neither is anyone else who isn't related, from what I understand. The reception is where the action is. I decided not to get a hotel, because my wife and child will not be there. My wife was invited, but it was not possible to bring the baby because the venue is an art museum, with no children allowed in the building. That would have meant we'd have to get a sitter for the baby, and the whole thing just seemed way to fraught with danger and difficulty. Therefore, I'm going alone, and I'm coming back the same night.

9:00pm-whenever: I will be driving home, hoping to catch the second half of the game on the radio. As I get closer to Tuscaloosa, WWL will likely go out, and I'll switch over to the Bama-Arky game if it's still on.

The rumors around the message board is that Flynn is walking around in a boot and either a) is not ready to go, or b) shouldn't play and risk more serious injury. If so, it looks like Ryan Perrilloux may get his long-awaited first start. Stay tuned.

Will the Real MTSU Please Stand Up

Middle Tennessee State University has played two games so far this season, and have looked like two different teams doing it. In their first game, they lost to lowly Florida Atlantic University 27-14, gaining only 217 yards of total offense, only 18 of which came on the ground. They fell behind 24-0 before scoring a couple late touchdowns to make the game look closer than it was.

In their second game, they scored 42 points on top 10 Louisville, gaining 554 yards of total offense, including 264 on the ground. They were in the game into the 4th quarter and were actually leading it late in the second quarter.

What do we know about MTSU? Well, one of their fans has made his way to Tiger Forums and has told us what to expect. Even he believes they looked like two different teams:

I wish I had the answer about the huge turnaround from game one to game two. We also accomplished it on a short week. To me that's nothing more than amazing. Last year we were co-champions of the Sun Belt based on a very conservative offense and a dominating defense. Our defense was supposed to be our strength again this year, but so far that hasn't happened. We tried the same style of play in our first game. Unfortunately, due to a couple of mishaps Florida Atlantic had 3 possessions before we ever touched the ball. After holding them to 3 and out they had to punt. It was a very bad punt, but it hit one of our players and FAU recovered. They ended up scoring. We then fumbled the ensuing kickoff. I think a combination of being on the field too long in the 1st quarter and the Florida heat/humidity really hurt us in that game.

We appeared to have a different game plan against Louisville. We went to more of a spread offense. We moved one of our biggest playmakers, Desmond Gee (pronounced "G") from running back to wide receiver. DeMarco McNair is our starting tailback. He runs a 4.35 forty. He is complimented by back-up Phillip Tanner. Tanner is a little bit bulkier, but he ran a leg on our track relay team. He has explosive speed as well. Joe Craddock, our QB, is a first year starter. He has a good arm and he has mobility.

We are hurting on the O-line. One reason why we went to the spread is because of a major lack of depth on the O-line. We have had numerous injuries at that position and we only had 7 scholarship O-linemen available for the Louisville game. I look for us to continue the spread offense because there is no way we can line up with the Tigers D-line.

Our defensive line is supposed to be our strength. We return basically all our 2-deep players from last year. We have not looked very good this year so far, but there is some real talent on the D-line. Our secondary is not bad. # 24 Bradley Robinson has really been hitting hard this year. If you saw the Louisville game you might remember he was the one who stuck Douglas on the goal line. Roy Polite has been laying the hits on as well. Our secondary might be the hardest hitting one you have faced this year.

Our linebackers are young, but talented.

This is going to be an extremely tough test for the Blue Raiders. If we play like we did the first game then it will be over in the 1st quarter. If we play like we did against Louisville, I look for some Tiger fans to be somewhat nervous at halftime, then your depth will take over.

I was very proud of the way we played at Louisville (even though I'm never happy with a loss). I think we showed flashes of the talent we have. We are nowhere close to being on the same level as a LSU, but this is college football and as fans we can always pull for our team, no matter the odds.

So there you have it. They play a spread out offense (or maybe they do). Their offensive line is not good. They are a pretty talented team for a mid-major. They are not expected to stay in the game the whole time.

There are a couple rumors really starting to fly around. I'm sure you've heard the whole Les-Miles-is-going-to-Michigan rumor. There's really nothing that can be done about that rumor. It's out there, and it's not going anywhere until either he leaves, Michigan hires someone else, or they decide to keep Lloyd Carr. Therefore, we can expect these rumors to persist for the entire season. I'll have some more thoughts on this in another post.

The other rumor going around is that Matt Flynn is more seriously injured than first thought. I will only say that someone on Tigerdroppings (yes, I still read it at times) posted something troubling yesterday, and it was quickly deleted by the administrators over there. I think we still beat MTSU pretty handily without Matt Flynn if it comes to that, but I'd rather not go against South Carolina at less than our best.

For what it's worth, Les Miles is denying that Flynn is out for the game:

"I think he'll be able to go, no question" Miles said of Flynn's status for Saturday's 7 p.m. home game against Middle Tennessee. "We figure he'll be available to us."

Flynn wore a large black boot around his ankle and up to his knee after practice.

"He puts that on after practice," LSU sports information director Michael Bonnette said. "He ran today. He threw."

What do I want out of this game:

1. A convincing win with no significant injuries and without showing future opponents anything useful on film,
   
2. The opportunity to get our best players out of the game early to help avoid injuries, and
   
3. Playing time for young players and other backups

Tomorrow, we preview the rest of the SEC.