A Purdue Take on Etling. Might be of interest.

Look, I'm not ready to crown Etling and as long as Miles keeps a death grip around his 1974 offense, LSU isn't going to do much. But, there has been a lot of talk about what we have in Etling either good or bad. I saw this and thought it might be of interest for those who really do want to size up what they might be facing at LSU from the QB position later in the year.

The jury is still out, obviously. But, apparently, he didn't leave Purdue because he was horrible. It was the fact that Purdue was horrible that caused him to leave. Or so this Purdue homer says:

LINK

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The good news for them is that Etling is legitimately talented.

This like the ultimate test in believing that a team needs a good quarterback or a quarterback needs a good team. Personally, I think any quarterback can look excellent with the right team around him. Look at Ken Dorsey. He struggled to do anything in the NFL, but in college he posted an absurd 38-2 record as a starter. The team he had around him was so talented pretty much anyone could have won games. I am pretty sure a legally dead person could have won playing quarterback in a few of those blowouts.

That’s where Etling comes in. Etling was a 4-star recruit and he was thrown into a horrible situation. As a true freshman he had to play behind an offensive line that would have had to improve to be putrid. Purdue gave up 38 sacks that season and had less than no running game. Most of the time he was running for his life almost at the moment of the snap.

The second factor was the infamous John Shoop. Shoop burned through three quarterbacks before we finally fired him. Multiple people have said his offensive philosophy was needlessly complicated and I tend to agree. Etling might be talented, but you had him playing behind that offensive line trying to run a complicated offense with no real running game and of course you’re going to struggle. If Drew Brees magically came back and played on that team he too would have struggled.

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Does this mean that LSU will be good with Etling? No. Les Miles is still there. But, apparently, he is a wild card who could improve the QB play over the course of the season. While I don't think that LSU will win the West, they could become a dangerous foe week in and week out, which is a far cry from preseason expectations, but a pain in the tail for the rest of the SEC.

We'll see what happens.