By Hunt Palmer
Saturday night’s Aggie avalanche completely dissolved a solid start by LSU. A 10-point lead turned into a 15-point loss in what felt like the blink of an eye. LSU failed to create any sort of ground game offensively and never found an answer for the A&M ground game once Marcel Reed took over. The folks at Pro Football Focus graded everything out, and the numbers reflect what was a thorough beating of the Tigers in Kyle Field.
Let’s take a look.
HIGHEST GRADES:
- Jay’viar Suggs, DT – 88.0
- Ashton Stamps, CB – 73.9
- Gio Paez, DT – 71.5
- Zy Alexander, CB – 71.4
- Aaron Anderson, WR – 70.2
Suggs has proven himself to be a quick pass rusher on the interior of the defensive line. He’s a little light to play every down, but he’s got a burst. In 21 snaps, he rushed the passer five times and produced two hurries and a sack. That’s about as well as you can do it. Unfortunately, the theme of these high defensive grades is that they are pretty useless against the run where Texas A&M owned LSU.
Ashton Stamps and Zy Alexander may have been great in coverage. We’ll never know because Conner Weigman couldn’t complete a pass and Marcel Reed only threw two.
Paez’s 71.4 is propped up by his 79.4 in pass rush. He was 60.9 against the run which was actually better than most of his teammates.
Anderson was the lone offensive player to make the Top 5. He’s had a fantastic and consistent season. His 76-yard catch and run for a score showcased his home run hitting ability. Many may have written Anderson off after he got swallowed up on the depth chart last season. He’s third on this team in receptions and now leads the team in yards per catch.
LOWEST GRADES
- Whit Weeks, LB – 42.9
- Will Campbell, LT – 49.3
- Greg Penn, LB – 53.9
- Paul Mubenga, OG – 53.9
- Paris Shand, DT – 54.3
After two truly great weeks of play, LSU’s linebackers failed the test against the Aggie running game. Time and time again Reed and the Texas A&M running backs found lanes to run through in the second half. Weeks graded 36.7 against the run and 33.1 in tackling. PFF credited Weeks with five total tackles and three missed tackles. Penn didn’t fair much better. He graded 37.6 against the run.
Offensively, the five lowest grades among those who played 20 snaps were all offensive linemen.
Campbell was the lowest at 49.3. He was a 58.1 against pass rush and 48.0 in run blocking. Take it for what it’s worth, maybe nothing, but Campbell did not crack 60 in pass blocking against South Carolina or Texas A&M.
Mubenga came into the game when Garrett Dellinger went down. He played 49 snaps and held his own in pass protection, 74.5. But, as is the case with the starters, he struggled to run block, 43.0.
This is a numbers piece, so I’ll just offload the numbers here for the offensive linemen not listed above.
Emery Jones: overall 56.3, run block 61.2, pass block 67.3
DJ Chester: overall 55.0, run block 52.0, pass block 60.2
Miles Frazier: overall 59.1, run block 50.6, pass block 77.9
When I watched the game live, I thought LSU’s offensive line did a decent job much of the game in pass protection. A&M got home a couple of times late in the game when LSU’s offense was forced to throw and throw quickly. The grades suggest they weren’t quite that good.
At this point, the LSU offensive line is what it is. Expecting this group to create consistent running lanes against high level competition just isn’t going to happen. We have a three-year sample to suggest that’s how things are going to go.
I shudder to think what a below average quarterback would do behind them, but LSU doesn’t have that issue. Nussmeier certainly makes some poor decisions. They were critical Saturday night. But, far more often than not, he does a good job of getting the ball out on time or creating some time to get it out. Maybe if LSU had asked him to throw it 38 times instead of 50 those bad decisions would come more infrequently. That’s an impossibility because the running game just doesn’t show up in these games.
