I'm not trying to defend Weigman but watching the replay our Oline pass protection was next level bad.

It doesn't matter who we put back there our passing game is very very concerning. Our defense is keeping us in games at least for us to figure it out and our run game is doing great but when that shuts down we have to figure out the glaring issues in our offense. We don't have great receiver talent and no protection is pretty rough for any QB.

Year 1 new coach, new staff and a lot of new players.

lsu's pass rush is very, very good. Weigman had very happy feet right from the beginning. but, yes we are below par in pass protection. not sure there we can fix that at this point in the season. it will be on Kline to manage the issue through his playcalling.

Our OL injuries have caught up to us, plus LSU is pretty good. When 55 went out and Shannahan came in we struggled pretty mightily in pass pro.

They knew Conner was scared and wasn't going to complete a pass so they just brought the house every time… they weren't worried about his running ability either

LSU sacked Dart 6 times.

Pass protection does need some work but not as bad as you think. I believe we have given up 11 sacks on the year which isn't that bad.

Onionman said:

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LSU sacked Dart 6 times.

Pass protection does need some work but not as bad as you think. I believe we have given up 11 sacks on the year which isn't that bad.

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Yep

Really only nd and lsu have been able to get to the qb on us

But, with reed in there that changes things as defenses need to stay in their rush lanes or reed takes off

That helps hold back a pass rush as teams can't just go all out and rush up field otherwise the qb gets big yards with his legs

USCe has a decent pass rush too.

His clock is to slow. He has to fix that.

Furlock Bones said:

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lsu's pass rush is very, very good. Weigman had very happy feet right from the beginning. but, yes we are below par in pass protection. not sure there we can fix that at this point in the season. it will be on Kline to manage the issue through his playcalling.

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agreed.

When LSU read pass, they pinned their ears and went after CW. That's the only option to disrupt a pocket passer, which is what we did to nuss 2nd half. When nuss was rolling out of the pocket, he was terrible. At some point in the 2nd half he was 3 for 13.

When we went with Reed, and did the fake pass protection qb draw, it iced the defense for the rest of the game. They have to respect the rb/qb rushing game but if they crash in they open up a route down the middle and Reed can RPO since he keeps his eyes up.

Conner had his chances. He had several wide open receivers, and he had several chances to scramble for big plays, he couldn't do either.

It wasn't the line.

Is south Carolina's DL better than LSU?

There didn't seem to be a lot of open receivers either.
Conner was in the pocket for a while with no one to go to. I don't know if that is our WR, offensive scheme, LSU DBs or some of all but they either weren't open or he didn't see them.

I though (generally) Conner had enough time to make passes if there was someone to throw to.

For as good as Moss ran, he didn't do Conner any favors in the first half. Fumble and two dropped passes. Couple of other receivers had drops too.

It's nice that Reed caught LSU off guard with the zone read but our passing game needs work. SC has film on Reed now and will be more prepared than LSU.

while all of this is true...

the Ags have scored 41, 34, and 38 points in their last 3 games

Agreed. There were 3 different times Saturday night where I thought why is he holding the ball so.long, then backed up and everyone was covered up. I agree with others that OL injuries, new system, and playing against a tough defense were big issues for us. However, our QBs, WRs, and coaches have some work to do. Our passing offense has to be better or it is going to hold us back this year, regardless of which QB is in.

taylorswift13_ said:

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They knew Conner was scared and wasn't going to complete a pass so they just brought the house every time… they weren't worried about his running ability either

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This is just so wrong. They brought 4 rushers the majority of the time, not "the house". And with those 4 rushers they still sacked him 4 times. Pass pro was abysmal.

Factor in that the route tree or lack of talent at WR means he doesn't have great check down options. When he did check down, there were multiple drops.

There is a reason Elmo said it wasn't Conner's fault. I will fault him for 2 bad throws and his unwillingness to take off. He ran for over 2000 yards in HS. I know he isn't necessarily fast enough at this level to beat the defense, but he should be able to go pick up a few yards here and there

NyAggie said:

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Onionman said:

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LSU sacked Dart 6 times.

Pass protection does need some work but not as bad as you think. I believe we have given up 11 sacks on the year which isn't that bad.

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Yep

Really only nd and lsu have been able to get to the qb on us

But, with reed in there that changes things as defenses need to stay in their rush lanes or reed takes off

That helps hold back a pass rush as teams can't just go all out and rush up field otherwise the qb gets big yards with his legs

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Still doesn't solve the passing game issues.

Rewatching the all 22 it was worse than just looking at the stats show. There's a reason Herbstreet was mentioning pressure on the QB almost every drop back.

The Banned said:

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taylorswift13_ said:

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They knew Conner was scared and wasn't going to complete a pass so they just brought the house every time… they weren't worried about his running ability either

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This is just so wrong. They brought 4 rushers the majority of the time, not "the house". And with those 4 rushers they still sacked him 4 times. Pass pro was abysmal.

Factor in that the route tree or lack of talent at WR means he doesn't have great check down options. When he did check down, there were multiple drops.

There is a reason Elmo said it wasn't Conner's fault. I will fault him for 2 bad throws and his unwillingness to take off. He ran for over 2000 yards in HS. I know he isn't necessarily fast enough at this level to beat the defense, but he should be able to go pick up a few yards here and there

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I agree with most of this except the first. LB were crashing down playing run first. While only 4 or 5 LSU players were in the backfield on many plays, they weren't sitting back in pass pro either.

Plenty of receivers to throw open downfield, but that's not a throw that weigman is good at. he had the same amount of time per snap that Nussmeier had in the first half to get a ball out on majority of his PAs but didn't make the right reads. Difference was Nussmeier got the ball out and Weigman starts to bail after 2 seconds feeling the pressure after his pre-snap read was wrong. He didn't show very natural instincts on dealing with the pressure and where to evade to, either.

Once we did a better job disguising our coverages in the second half, it was the same for LSU. Playing QB against high level defense is tough.

Difference between Reed and Weigman was dictating the defensive response to us instead of react to it against us.

Watched the replay from the skycast perspective. Absolutely zero time for Connor to throw, and wr coverage very tight at the time of pressure. It was evident TJ Shanahan is very bad at pass pro, and we're missing Bisontis greatly. So glad we have Lamar Jackson as the backup. Hoping Shanahan (RS FR) will get better with time. I can't believe Dewberry or any of the other seasoned linemen can't supplant him as the starter.

Pass protection was poor but it shouldn't have come as a huge surprise. When 55 was out we were going with the 4th and 5th guards in our rotation. Combine that with 3 drops and a catch and fumble in the first quarter it's not surprising the offense was bad. It got even worse when we tried to push the ball downfield which resulted in sacks. SC will be a big challenge in pass protection…I expect us to rely heavily on the run game.

We need to lean on the running game at this point by necessity.

Elko said after the game it wasn't on Conner and he's right. Anyone who thinks he had a chance needs to rewind the broadcast and instead of focusing on the ball, focus on the left interior of our offensive line. It was beyond bad, it was completely non-servicable. Couple that with the pressure that we knew to expect from their ends and the dropped passes and it was a complete abortion. LSU DID NOT bring the "house". In fact, they did the exact opposite, they rushed four and dropped 7, which meant we were 4 receivers on 7 defensive backs with no pass protection. When a defense can do that, the passing offense is done.

The silver lining is that as bad as our interior line was in pass protection they were equally as good in the running game. We made great blocks in the combo game and cut-off the second level. This was aided greatly by Reed's athleticism which immediately spread the defense and created opportunities for our OL to pick off the pursuit.

Get past SCe and we'll have two weeks for some of the OL to heal up. Here's hoping they do.

No pocket pass pro is designed to hold the ball for 4-6 seconds. Weigman is done

So weird that they had pressure but then we had time to throw it deep to an open receiver with Reed in the game....

Furlock Bones said:

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lsu's pass rush is very, very good. Weigman had very happy feet right from the beginning. but, yes we are below par in pass protection. not sure there we can fix that at this point in the season. it will be on Kline to manage the issue through his playcalling.

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Would be interested to hear from others how good LSU's Dline is versus our remaining schedule. Maybe in another thread, don't want to derail this one.

I agree the line looked worse with Conne/or, but a dual threat QB will almost always make your line look better. Plus we didn't really throw many passes after Marcel came in.

Madmarttigan said:

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I'm not trying to defend Weigman but watching the replay our Oline pass protection was next level bad.

It doesn't matter who we put back there our passing game is very very concerning. Our defense is keeping us in games at least for us to figure it out and our run game is doing great but when that shuts down we have to figure out the glaring issues in our offense. We don't have great receiver talent and no protection is pretty rough for any QB.

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You can't block everyone if they bring six with no TE in or seven with TE and RB. TE on DE is just not effective and RB on DE or LB at speed is hard.

Go look at it again and count matchups. With that said: we clearly are a work in progress in the OL. Which can be read two ways: given 7-1 record it's good progress. But if you're here to virtue signal how smart you are to the other internet tough guys you have to crap on the team so you did.

Ag_EE_88 said:

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So weird that they had pressure but then we had time to throw it deep to an open receiver with Reed in the game....

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1. Reed threw that ball pretty quickly.
2. It's not really a fair comparison because they were dropping 7-8 in zone against Weigman. On that incredible pass Reed made it was man with one deep safety. That being said, it's directly because of Reed's talent that could happen, so full credit to him.

I'm It's not a lot of data points but we have played 8 quarters of football against very good defenses. Connor has struggled big time in six of those and Reed shredded LSU in two. It's hard to not wonder what would have happened if we played Reed in the second half of the ND game.

LuoJi said:

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No pocket pass pro is designed to hold the ball for 4-6 seconds. Weigman is done

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The pass rush pressure was massive and from the worst places (right up the A gap) with a 4-man pass rush.

There was no 4 seconds of time, more like 1.5 seconds on most downs.

You can choose to make things up if you like, I suppose that's your prerogative.

Regardless, we end up in the same place. If I'm Elko, I'm putting Marcel out there and leaning hard on the zone/QB running game. Our line was very good in that part of the game Saturday and Reed is a dynamic offensive threat in that part of the game. We can sprinkle in some play action which should buy us some protection time and shoot for a few big plays.

At the same time, I'm certain they'll be doing everything they can to try and find some magic potions to create a little bit of pass protection, but there was none on Saturday.