News of the day, 10/24

Hey everyone. A studious and resourceful reader has passed along some interesting screen captures from the AU-LSU game. I'm not super into these angles of argument, though, because things like that happen all the time. If I noted every awkward spot I see in a season, that could be its own blog.

The illegal formation thing might be a tad more worthy of mention, but I still don't think that's a big deal. Auburn fans probably feel differently. So it goes.

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OK. This is the illegal formation play. You can see the flanker on the left side of the formation is approximately 1.5 yards off the line of scrimmage. Some refs call that. Some don't. This one, you can see him at the bottom left, is not holding up his arm to signal a problem. The flag came from the other side of the field. Based on what you see right here, I don't think the officials necessarily blew the call. It's a judgment thing. Throwing the flag, then watching the video review to disregard the flag is a mistake.



Here is the third-down play late in the game that yielded LSU an important first down. Note that Chris Evans and Eric Brock both missed the tackle.

Sure, I think the tailback fell short of the first-down line. I'm just not that keen on scrutinizing spots. They're pretty subjective in all cases. There were times during the New Mexico State game when I found certain spots poorly judged. It happens. If you want to clamor for better spots overall, fine, but it's very rare that I hear coaches seriously grumbling over spots.





As a follow-up to my Sunday rant about Bobby Hebert, LSU released a statement on Tuesday night apologizing to the Auburn reporters who were stationed near Hebert at the game. Here is a portion of the release. This is very rare, and a very classy move on LSU's part to acknowledge the issue and pledge to keep it from happening again.

For all you that attended the LSU vs. Auburn football game last Saturday
at Tiger Stadium I would like to extend a formal apology on behalf of
the LSU Sports Information Department concerning the behavior of one of
our credential media members. I understand that the situation was not
only completely unprofessional, but a huge distraction to those of there
in a working capacity, especially considering the late deadline. I can
assure that the issue is being addressed on our end and we don't expect
any future incidents of that nature.

Once again, I apologize for any problems this may have caused you that
evening and I only hope that your next trip to Tiger Stadium will be a
better one.