Smart's lame defense of Fromm...and other thoughts

Seems like Smart could have just come out and said that Fromm played like shite. Instead, he started off by defending him (yet criticizing him at the same time):

“All the struggles weren’t his, he made some third down throws I thought were really good,” Smart said, “And a couple times he ends up getting sacked, and he’s got to make a decision to get rid of the ball, but we don’t run the right route on one of them."

“There’s a lot of pressures they [LSU] run that are hard to pick up,” Smart said, “and I was very concerned with that coming into the game.”

“Some of those you’ve got to escape and get rid of the ball,” Smart said. “I didn’t think it was the protection as much as it was making decisions quicker, getting rid of the ball quicker. And at the end of the day, don’t be in third-and-long.”

Fromm's issues in the LSU game aside, the offensive strategy and play-calling were abysmal. I have to wonder if Smart is himself frustrated with Chaney. He seemed to be at other points earlier in the season but it didn't matter against inferior competition.

Regardless of how we fare the rest of this year, I hope that Smart is more like Saban than Richt in terms of upgrading assistants when it's in the best interest of the program. Richt's loyalty caused him to retain people way past the point when he should have let them go. I hope Smart takes a more ruthless approach.