The coaching staff *did* adapt the offense around Treon Harris, but Treon is that bad and the offensive line is too thin to help him out. LSU laid out the blueprint: blitz the QB at the strong side, keep a spy back for the rushing QB, wait for the interception or incomplete pass. When that failed for the opponents, just send that spy crashing on the running back. When that failed, that DE, SS, or LB that sealed the strong side would crush the running back or the receiver on a jet sweep.
Reporters watching practice stated that Coach Mac was changing up plays for the SEC championship game, and the offense struggled in practice. It showed on the field as well. Harris missed a couple receivers who ran the wrong route, which is the first time those guys ran those plays in a game.
The coaches did their job. Treon Harris is just the worst QB we have ever had. It's that simple. Until this year, Donald Douglas was our worst QB ever. Statistically, Treon Harris is the worst QB we ever had. In history.
"Worst QB in Gator history "? Yeah, sounds bout right. Think I said as much last night here--and that was just a gut-level assessment based on the dreaded "eye test": It simply LOOKED horrible, has for several weeks, more'n'more.
Sure hope you're right about all them "trying but didn't work out in practice, E--...looked worse than ever". But that in turn raises the already-posed q, "Then why not try someone, ANYONE else back there?!!" Do we truly have NO ONE ELSE as "emergency back-up"?--'cause that offense is an "emergency" with Treon running it, for SURE. That's a NICE way of putting it.
No matter the current answer to that question, the bottom line one remains this: We have GOT to bring in MULTIPLE future QB candidates. Countless other teams without our long term promise and resources manage it. No reason but poor judgment and short sighted incompetence explains how it came to this in our case.
So. As I and others have long since concluded and begun to loudly insist, the main order of business now, the only "next move" that matters (and upon which we will have to judge this regime, top to bottom) is how they respond to it. I've been saying this with more and more insistence-bordering-on-ferocity: GET SOME QBs IN HERE!!! Idealy one or two 5-star "NBTs", an unheralded "potential hidden gem" or two, and maybe a "disgraced upperclassman", a refugee outta one of the "rehab programs" scrabbling for a 3rd or 4th chance at redemption--this last to possibly step in and run things with relative calm experience start of next season, at least til Grier is eligible to compete for his old job back (just too much to ask or expect a kid to come in and get it done with only a coupla months of spring/summer practice under his belt). And if the "new old guy" won't give it up so easily, well, all the better, right?
OK, I'm REALLY riding the "Hope Train" now, won't deny it--but these are the proper areas in which to place our "hopes" now, don't you think? Not like "hoping" our hopeless "only choice" at QB gained us ANYTHING AT ALL last few weeks.
At the very least, these should be where a great deal of our practical efforts must be channeled--the future, and in very specific ways. I am assured by my own "backdoor contacts" (admittedly comparative few--but they ARE reliable and "close to the program's corridors of power") that there are by now well-beaten paths in all directions, including both the crowded ones AND into nooks and crannies that
few seem aware of, or normally might even consider: Our plight borders on desperate now, and I for one am GLAD to hear we may well finally be pursuing "secret and high-risk options" for restocking the quarterback position.
I expect no less from this Head Coach and his OC. Perhaps the most interesting part of yesterday's performance (and in a twisted sort of way, encouraging) was the fighting in the 2nd half...Well, not the fighting itself, really, but the seemingly "mixed signals" inherent in Mac's reaction: You gotta believe that NORMALLY he'd have been apoplectic, in his players' faces as we've seen in the past (and like his former-mentor on the other side of the field with HIS guys)--as no doubt he WOULD have been if WE'D been heading into the Football Final Four in our next game. Don't wanna lose someone, stupidly suspended for a crucial showdown-for-elimination.
As things are for us, though, while not happy about it (seems to show a certain loss-of-control over his team, after all), our Coach had to see (and on some level approved of, if loathe to show his team or the world) what I saw: Guys who were frustrated, embarassed by their own play and that of their team, angry and FED UP--at least they still had FIRE in 'em, and for good reason: 'Cause some of their owm teammates were GIVING UP. And that is deadly to a team, to the whole idea of a "TEAM". That has to be " fixed" IMMEDIATELY. Some will have to be gone, others somehow shocked out of whatever has infected them...Radical treatment is in order, destroy the cancer and hope the rest can recover. In this case, the very heart (QB) must clearly be replaced: rip it out and rebuild. And keep a few healthy spares handy, too. How its done nowadays.
