With the bowl game getting closer by the day, it's time to take a look at the opponent.  This time, it's the offense. Read more to get on with it.

Offense

The story about LSU's offense this year is that they're just not that great. They rank in the bottom half the SEC in just about every offensive category and if it weren't for Vanderbilt, would be dead-last in the conference in total offense.  That was kind of surprising, since maybe we're just used to SEC teams beaing "TEH BEST EVAR AT EVERYTHING".

Well, guess not.

Anyhow, they are a good team and despite their crappy offensive rankings, have a few players to watch.

We'll start things off with quarterback Jordan Jefferson. We don't know much about these SEC guys, so the first thing we think of when we think of Jefferson is this:

Holy cow!

Heck of a play on fourth down, and we know it probably wasn't his call to spike it, but those are the kind of lapses in judgement we hope to see Jan 1.

As for his actual stats, he's throwing for 178 ypg, 16 TDs on the season compared to 6 INT. Pretty pedestrian numbers, but worthy of the dreaded "game manager" title.

errr, whoops.

The other good news for Penn State fans regarding Jordan Jefferson is that their o-line allowed the most sacks in the SEC conference. Of course, that was against those vaunted SEC defenses, so we can't really say how to interpret those states. Hopefully it means we can see a lot of pressure, forcing Jefferson to make some bad plays.

As for the weapons that Jefferson gets to work with, we'll start it off with receivers Brandon LaFell and Terrance Toliver.

Stats time:

Pretty good numbers for both men, considering how woeful their team offense has been.  After that it's a steep dropoff to their third ranking receiver, tight end Richard Dickson.

Catch the ball, Dick.

At the top 2 receiver positions, LSU certainly has the talent to move the ball through the air. It's just a matter of balancing out that offense with efficient quarterback play and a running game that has been, well, suspect.

LSU's regular running backs finished the season on the shelf. Their leading rusher, Charles Scott, missed the final 3 games but in the 9 he did play, accumulated only 542 yards.  Keiland Williams, the next on their list, played in 11 and only had 368. Each had four touchdowns. Yeah, it's been a bit of running by committee down there.  We're still not sure who to expect to see in the game, Charles Scott is questionable because of a broken collarbone back in November, so we may be seeing Trindon Holliday who attempted only 23 carries this season.  The only game he got more than 3 carries was against Arkansas in the season finale. He got 9, and put up 57 yards.

Overall, it's been a pretty rough year for the Tigers' offense.  But they're going to play better than their stats may lead us to believe. Afterall, they have injuries to blame, the challenge of playing against that incredible SEC schedule, and trying to overcome Les Miles' bizarre decision making.

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