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We Hate to Blame One Player For LSU's Losses But Yeah, We're Going To

Nov 6, 2008 – 12:20 PM
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Ryan Ferguson

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The defending national champions won't be headed to Miami this year for a chance at the repeat, and there's a fairly obvious reason why: Jarrett Lee's five touchdown passes to the opposing team. Lee appears high on a list of dubious distinction, that list being titled "Most Total Interceptions Thrown for a Touchdown since 2005." (* denotes active players. Thanks to CFBStats.com for compiling this list.)



Sure, in simplistic terms Lee isn't the most egregious offender on this list: Rudy Carpenter and Leon Jackson have thrown more, and even Heisman contenders Graham Harrell and Colt McCoy appear on this list with similar pick-six stats. But there's one glaring problem. More after the jump.

Jarret Lee has only made 189 pass attempts to reach that number, and all of them were in the past 10 weeks, compared to 1,018 for McCoy and 1,393 for Harrell over the course of the previous two seasons plus this one.

Really, it's not even close. Lee is a heinous turnover machine, and the worst of his dastardly deeds is scoring points for the other team on a regular basis. To be fair to the young frosh, he'll probably be fine in time. Lee has a strong arm and good leadership qualities. Starting as a freshman QB in the SEC is something you do only out of desperation (thanks a lot, Ryan Perilloux!) and we must hope that Lee's confidence remains strong as he grows as a quarterback. But in the meantime, yeah, FanHouse directly blames Lee for LSU's losses, even moreso than LSU's porous defense or drop-happy receivers. Sorry, Jarrett, and good luck against Alabama this weekend.
Filed under: Sports

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