A little LSU and aTm commentary

[Biggus Piggus]

LSU expects to improve its run defense after hiring Dave Aranda as defensive coordinator.

Aranda was DC for Gary Andersen at Utah State and Wisconsin. Before that, DC at Hawaii and Southern Utah.

He's really a rare story in college coaching. Not often you see a Cal Lutheran grad make the leap to Power 5 coaching. But he got lucky following Andersen to Wisconsin. Aranda was the only assistant who stayed on staff there when Andersen left + was replaced by Paul Chryst.

Aranda has changed the LSU defensive scheme to a 3-4. He's originally a linebacker coach, and his defenses have featured good LB play. Sometimes that is a difficult transition, but it probably plays to the strengths of the LSU roster.

LSU also has tons of talent in the secondary as usual. Their safeties are strong and physical. Aranda's supposed to have a good run D scheme that relies on the safeties and linebackers.

Texas A&M expects to have a better running game after hiring Jim Turner to be the Oline coach.

Last year, Dave Christensen (ex-head coach at Wyoming, longtime assistant for Gary Pinkel at Missouri/Toledo) was the Oline coach at aTm. The "buzz" is that Christensen did not mesh with Kevin Sumlin and the offensive staff.

Turner was Mike Sherman's Oline coach for four seasons at College Station, before going to the Miami Dolphins. That was bad timing for him - Turner was fired amid the "bullying" scandal at Miami. He filed a defamation lawsuit over Ted Wells's investigation, claiming (probably rightly so) that the NFL hired Wells to be its hatchet man and assign blame to somebody (and get the story out of the headlines).

Turner was fortunate that aTm was such a cluster and needed an Oline coach, where he had done a good job in the past. Turner comes in to work with another new offensive assistant, coordinator Noel Mazzone from UCLA and many other stops (Ole Miss, Auburn, Oregon State, NC State, Arizona State).

It is hard to know what to expect from the Aggies' offense after such dramatic change. They will start a grad transfer at QB, Trevor Knight from OU (who apparently couldn't beat out Baker Mayfield). Mazzone had a sophomore QB last season who completed 60% for almost 3,700 yards and 23 TDs. But that guy was a blue chip talent. Knight's a step down.

Mazzone ran a hurry-up spread passing offense at UCLA. The Bruins also had a 1,300-yard rusher, Paul Perkins (5-10, 196) + had four runners who averaged 5-6 yards per carry. Their rushing game scored 26 touchdowns, doing the same change-up stuff that plagued the Arkansas run defense against spread offenses last season.

[KevinOMReb]

Noel "Red Zone" Mazzone. Nice guy but his red zone percentages at OM were horrible.  And if he's that good, how is it he's been on so many different staffs in the past few years?  Until Les is gone, LSU, even with all of their talent, will underperform.

[Atlhogfan1]

Booger and Spears think(hope?) the Aranda hire will improve the defense by simplifying it as well compared to what they tried implementing last year.  Beckwith is a good LB but they are going to need to find some depth. 

Sumlin is still trying to change the softness of his program.

[Russ22]

Noel "Red Zone" Mazzone. Nice guy but his red zone percentages at OM were horrible.  And if he's that good, how is it he's been on so many different staffs in the past few years?  Until Les is gone, LSU, even with all of their talent, will underperform.

Solid take easily debunked with actual statistics:

By third down
http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=Chart-The-top-20-3rd-down-playcallers-over-the-last-3-years

By red zone
http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=Chart-The-top-red-zone-playcallers-over-the-last-3-years

Top Scoring
http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=Chart-Top-scoring-playcallers-over-the-last-4-years-2015

[Bacons Rebellion]

... Not often you see a Cal Lutheran grad make the leap to Power 5 coaching...

It's possible I have never seen a Cal Lutheran grad make a leap into anything.

I don't think anybody ever knows what to really expect from LSU. Under Miles, they are an enigma.

Texas A&M is becoming similar under Sumlin. They seem to be a completely different team at the end of the year that at the beginning, for better or worse.

[Pulled(PP)pork]

Trevor Knight from OU (who apparently couldn't beat out Baker Mayfield).

but he practically beat the vaunted Alabama defense by himself in the bowl game....so, he's no spring chicken


PP

[longpig]

Noel "Red Zone" Mazzone. Nice guy but his red zone percentages at OM were horrible.  And if he's that good, how is it he's been on so many different staffs in the past few years?  Until Les is gone, LSU, even with all of their talent, will underperform.

One season, under Ed Orgeron, eleven years ago.