Danny Etling finding the open man, and the starting job, at LSU

BATON ROUGE, La. — Sometimes sharing things can get you in trouble.

During Monday’s player interview session, LSU offensive guard Will Clapp joined the media to grill new starting quarterback and Madden wonderkid Danny Etling on a questionable choice.

“I hear reports that you let (tight end) Foster Moreau play that game and did not tell Will Clapp,” the faux reporter declared, offended on who Etling shares his game with.

Apparently, it’s a habit from the field that the Purdue transfer carries off the field. Etling is one to share with his receivers.

Since taking over the quarterback job in the second quarter of the Jacksonville State game on Sept. 10, Etling has gotten two players their first career touchdown receptions (DeSean Smith and D.J. Chark) and two more their first career receptions (Moreau and Chark).

In last week’s 23-20 win over Mississippi State, Etling completed 19 passes to seven receivers representing every skill position on the field: wide receivers (Malachi Dupre, Travin Dural and Chark), tight ends (Moreau), running backs (Leonard Fournette and Derrius Guice) and fullbacks (J.D. Moore).

All of a sudden, the Tigers offense that had been so one-dimensional (see, hand-off to Fournette, LSU’s brilliant Heisman Trophy candidate at tailback) has become, believe it or not, balanced.

“If the defense doesn’t know what you’re going to do,” said Moore, the pile-driving lead blocker for Fournette, “then that’s an advantage for you in the running game.”

And it’s something that has been, whether it was Brandon Harris’ fault or not, missing from the LSU offense.

A year ago, in Harris’ first year as a starter, Dupre and Dural accounted for 71 of the team’s 149 completed passes despite Dural missing the last two games because of injury. That continued in this year’s season opener when eight of the 12 completions thrown by Harris were to the two Tigers star receivers.

That changed in Week 2 after Etling entered the JSU game. His six completions were to five receivers and only one completion — a 5-yard throw to Dural — was to one of the “Big Two.” Against Mississippi State, the passes were spread around with Dupre and Dural accounting for eight of the 19 completions.

The pair went from accounting for 49 percent of their team’s pass receptions in a season and change with Harris to 36 percent of the receptions in two games with Etling.

Etling was 19-for-30 for 215 yards and a touchdown against Mississippi State, an effort while not perfect, has LSU coach Les Miles hinting that Etling will remain the starter.

“What we’re going to do is we’re going to let Danny take the next snaps and continue his path and hope that he continues to improve, and at some point in time down the road we’re going to look around and say, ‘Boy, that quarterback play that we got was great,'” Miles said Monday when asked if Etling will remain the starter for the rest of the season.

It’s Miles, so good luck translating that quote, but in person it came across as an endorsement from Miles, who seemed willing to ride with Etling, even if he runs into some struggles.

What LSU hasn’t, and won’t do, is change the offense significantly for a new starter. While some have opined that a new quarterback may have led to new play calls involving more receivers, speaking with Tigers players, it’s evident that it’s nothing new, just a different level of execution.

“I think people felt like we opened up our playbook, but those kinds of distributions have always been a part of the offense,” Moore said. “I think Danny does a good job finding the open guy, and I think that’s what we want to do is be as diverse and spread the ball to as many people as possible because we have an incredible amount of weapons on offense.”

Weapons people are just finding out about.

Like in the Jacksonville State game when Smith, a senior tight end who has always had a reputation for being a talented but underutilized receiver, found himself open streaking down the field and Etling got the ball to him for the 46-yard touchdown, the first of his career.

“When the ball was in the air,” Smith said, “I said to myself, ‘It’s about time.'”

Then there was Chark, who spent last year with Etling on the scout team before catching his first career pass against Jacksonville State and adding three against Mississippi State, including a nice grab in the back of the end zone on a 37-yard touchdown pass where it looked, at first, like Etling might have overthrown him.

“I think it’s tough to overthrow D.J.,” Etling joked. “He’s so fast.”

LSU fans hadn’t had much chance to see that speed, save a 79-yard run for a touchdown on a jet sweep in last year’s Texas Bowl, until Etling became the starter.

Etling acknowledged that his chemistry with Chark goes back to scout team last year when Etling was sitting out in a transfer season and Chark was struggling to find playing time behind Dupre and Dural.

But don’t expect him to lock in on Chark anytime soon, or any one receiver … not unless the defense invites him to do that.

“I’ll throw to the same guy every time if that’s what the defense wants to do to us,” he said. “It really depends on the play. It depends on what they (the defense) wants to do and who they leave open. We just take what they give us.”

Etling came to LSU with a reputation for analyzing defenses to a fault. He was a two-year starter at Purdue before losing his job to Austin Appleby, who is now the starting quarterback at Florida for the injured Luke Del Rio.

Etling admitted that while at Purdue, he’d overwork and overthink things, perhaps leading to his benching after starting 13 games in two seasons, passing for 2,490 yards, 16 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. He admits to making bad decisions based on trying to be too perfect.

“I’d see ghosts,” he said. “You’d be thinking, ‘This is what they did this game,’ so you start chasing what you thought you saw on film.”

And that would lead to mistakes and nervous play.

In the year after leaving Purdue and sitting out at LSU per NCAA transfer rules, Etling didn’t unlearn the work ethic, but he did learn to relax it.

“At a certain point, you want to study football, you want to understand football and you want to go out there and see it as it is,” he said.

With some exception — after a fast start, he struggled in the second half of the Jacksonville State game and finished 6-for-14 for 100 yards — he has done that so far.

And nobody’s happier than those involved in LSU’s running game.

“When you’re able to spread the ball like that and the defense doesn’t know who’s going to get the ball, you love it in the run game,” he said. “Because it opens up lanes in the running game, which in turn, opens things up for the passing game.”

And you achieve balance, something LSU isn’t supposed to have, but it’s quickly becoming the reality with its new quarterback who shares footballs and video games with equal generosity.

Gary Laney