quote:
Miles just runs the ball like all the time. I wouldn't consider that padding stats. Now if he let Harris throw the ball 50 times against a weaker opponent I would say he is trying to pad his stats because he is going out of his norm.

Well, perhaps. I don't have a % breakdown of number run vs number of pass plays in, say, conference play vs non-conference play. I only watched LSU fully when they played Alabama, and they had 19 passes and 26 rushes; however, 5 of those rushes were Harris. Two were sacks; no idea if the other three were designed runs or scrambles. That's at least 21 passes vs 24 rushes.

I just checked, and yeah - 506 rushing attempts vs 277 pass attempts. By contrast, Alabama was 642 vs 446, respectively. LSU ran the ball 64.6% of the time (out of 65.25 offensive plays per game); Alabama 59% (Out of 72.5 offensive plays per game).

In his defense, he did get way more pass happy after the Alabama game in the two losses to Arkansas and OM (35 & 51 attempts, respectively). Those two games account for 31% of all passing attempts by LSU.

So, I did keep digging - he threw way more per game in conference games (25.6 att/g) than in non-conference play (18 att/g), and against non-P5, 17 att/g.

I will say that it became clear that "stopping" LF wasn't necessary to beat LSU, just slowing him down. In all three games that LSU lost, they gained less than 200 yards on the ground.