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I’ll start off by mentioning a couple other writings of mine that might provide some interesting backstory. I wrote the first last week about Les Miles’ record at LSU, but it also compares his record to that of other coaches, including Saban’s at LSU and Alabama. Then of course there is my blog about the LSU/Alabama rivalry, dominated for decades by Alabama but controlled by LSU for much of the first decade of the 21st century before becoming competitive again of late.
This is unrelated, but I also wanted to share a couple of links about Marcus Lattimore. Spurrier got a bit of criticism for his sort of backhanded acknowledgement of Dabo Swinney’s kind words about Lattimore. Dabo didn’t go quite as far as “Hog Lady” though. The SEC isn’t just great defenses and running backs, you have to love the fans and personalities as well.
Back to the important goings on, we do have two of the most successful active head coaches with their current programs facing one another, and of course LSU was fortunate to have had them both.
If you’ll look at the stats I gave in the Les Miles blog, I think it’s an even bigger coaching match-up with Urban Meyer at a new school and with Pete Carroll in the NFL. It’s harder to argue there are other guys doing as well or better.
There was a time where the Red River Rivalry had two coaches that were at about the same level Miles and Saban are now, but I think both Texas and Oklahoma have gone a little downhill in recent years. And there was never a point where that game featured two programs with a combined 3 national championship and one runner-up in 5 seasons, with of course one runner-up in that time (LSU last year) as well. (It took 10 seasons for Oklahoma and Texas to accumulate two national championships and three runners-up between them; two national championships and one runner-up took place in the six seasons between 2000 and 2005.)
Of course, when Urban Meyer was still at Florida, his game against the Tigers in 2009 represented 4 combined championships since 2003. So that was bigger at the time, especially being that Saban hadn’t won one at Alabama yet.
Saban and Miles followed similar trajectories on their way to LSU. A little bit of NFL experiences, but they were hired from being the head coaches at second-fiddle state universities. I don’t mean to take anything away from them, but the great programs in Michigan and Oklahoma are not the ones that end in “State”, although Sparty has a little more of a substantial history.
I wanted to talk about Miles vs. Saban head-to-head and mention a few notes about the series overall before assessing this season’s game.
Continue to Full Post, including "Miles vs. Saban" and "Game Notes and Preview"
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Mercy, mercy, mercy. Cowboys. Overrated NFL players, Guess who?? ESPN, Irish, Tide, and more in this weeks edition of…..
Before I start, I would like to send my best to all those effected by hurricane Sandy. I hope you are safe and okay.
Okay, so like we didn’t already know that Tim Tebow is the most overrated NFL player there is. So now Sports Illustrated has to validate what we already knew with the help of 180 NFL players. Tim received 34% of the vote, followed by his teammate Mark Sanchez with 8% and Tony Romo who also had 8%. Michael Vick finished 4th with 4% and in a shocker, Ray Lewis received 3% for 5th place.
Maybe SI did it to quite Skip Bayless, who as we all know, is the #1 fan of Tebow.
I know they have the Mercy Rule in Little League Baseball, but I think it is time to expand it to College Football. I really don’t want to watch a game that is 70-14, 68-3, etc, etc. etc. I think the NCAA ought to come up with a rule that states “If you are more than five touchdowns behind at half-time, or at the end of the 3rd quarter, the game will end and all stats are final. Game clock will still run and with the remaining time, both teams bands will entertain the fans until the clock runs out.”
How the mighty have fallen. Cam Newton, last years stud, is this years, dud.
Sorry Dez. You, Romo, the Cowboys and all the fans in the stands and those watching on TV thought you had the game winning touchdown. Then you did this…
Instant replay showed “the truth.“ It turned out to be the catch that wasn’t. Victory taken away from the use-to-be America’s team!!!! Another great Cowboy blunder!! How does that eat at you Jerry Jones!!!
How can you have anyone other than Alabama as the #1 team in the nation? First off, the Crimson Tide are undefeated and second, they are the defending National Champs. Until someone knocks them off, anyone who is ahead of them in the polls are imposters!!
I am one who is for the defending National Champ, in any college sport, to be the next years preseason favorite, regardless of the number of talented players who have departed the team. The Champs have at least earned and deserved that right. Once they lose, all bets are off.
We bitch and moan about ESPN and how they are all this, or that, but admit it, we go right back and watch their sports programming. Same goes for announcers. I use to dislike listening to Howard Cosell, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t turn on Monday Night Football to listen to see what BS comes out of his mouth.
Til Next Time
Scott
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Top 25
rank / team / prior
1 Notre Dame 2
2 Alabama 1
3 Ohio St. 5
4 Kansas St. 4
5 Oregon 6
6 Florida 3
7 Louisville 12
8 LSU 8
9 Oregon St. 7
10 Georgia 21
11 S Carolina 15
12 Florida St. 16
13 Stanford 18
14 Toledo 13
15 TX Tech 9
16 Clemson 22
17 Boise St. 17
18 Nebraska –
19 N’western –
20 Miss. St. 11
21 Rutgers 10
22 Texas 20
23 TX A&M 25
24 Oklahoma 14
25 Tulsa –
Out of rankings: (20) W Virginia, (24) USC, (25) Wisconsin
Full 124 permalink
I’m going to write separately about LSU-Alabama. For now, I’ll just mention that while I expect LSU won’t win, I had the same feeling the last time a coach I particularly dislike as a person brought a top-5 team to Baton Rouge. LSU may also have benefited from that experience. I certainly hope the Tigers are at a higher level than Mississippi St. is, and that was probably the best team Alabama has played by far. I believe that South Carolina and Florida are both better teams (or at least South Carolina was).
Full blog, including rankings explanation and links to prior rankings.
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I was talking to a Florida fan the other day, and shortly after we talked about Spurrier, he mentioned that Miles wasn’t doing a very good job at LSU.
I’m as frustrated as a lot of LSU fans with some issues. Clock management at the end of certain games against Ole Miss and Tennessee, refusing to give Jarrett Lee a chance in the BCS championship game in January, sticking with former OC Gary Crowton as long as he did, and so on.
But the man wins games and somehow finds a way to take teams that don’t seem particularly strong and have them win 7 of 8 or 6 of 7 and so forth. There was sort of a 2-year rebuilding process after the national championship, but take away Lee’s interception affliction in 2008 and a couple two-point losses in 2009, and those teams have similar records to the teams in Miles’ other 5 full seasons before this one.
The gold standard in recent coaching stints is Pete Carroll at USC, who went 110-20. I think Miles would have to have a few 1- or 0- loss teams in a row to even come close to 85% (Carroll won 84.6%), but he’s competitive with or ahead of other recent luminaries, particularly if you limit it to tenures in the last 10 years or those that (have) lasted longer than his. I’m not looking at career winning percentage but only at a particular school.
Saban (Ala.) 62-12 (83.8%)*
Spurrier (Fla.) 122-27-1 (81.7%)
Meyer (Fla.) 65-15 (81.3%)
Tressel (Ohio St.) 94-22 (81.0%)
Miles (LSU) 71-17 (80.7%)*
Stoops (Okla.) 144-35 (80.4%)*
Brown (Texas) 146-41 (78.1%)*
Richt (Ga.) 122-39 (75.8%)*
Carr (Mich.) 122-40 (75.3%)
Saban (LSU) 48-16 (75.0%)
*=active; record and percentage as of Week 8
Before I continue, I wanted to mention that of course I realize winning 70 games is nothing like winning 150 or 400. Being able to keep ahead of the other great programs over a decade or more is no easy task. Urban Meyer seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown after 6 seasons at Florida.
But nonetheless, this is pretty good company to be in as far as how often your team wins games, and any fan of these teams will tell you that.
These are some historically great coaching tenures that had lower winning percentages (ties counted as half a win) than Miles has had so far:
Full post
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Top 25
rank / team / prior
1 Alabama 1
2 Notre Dame 2
3 Florida 5
4 Kansas St. 4
5 Ohio St. 3
6 Oregon 7
7 Oregon St. 6
8 LSU 12
9 TX Tech 8
10 Rutgers 11
11 Miss. St. 15
12 Louisville 16
13 Toledo –
14 Oklahoma 13
15 S Carolina 9
16 Florida St. 24
17 Boise St. 18
18 Stanford 19
19 W Virginia 10
20 Texas 23
21 Georgia 25
22 Clemson –
23 USC 21
24 Wisconsin –
25 TX A&M 14
Out of rankings: (17) Cincinnati, (20) N’western, (22) La. Tech
Full 124 permalink
(Prior rankings can be found via the link at the bottom of the post.)
Note about the SEC:
Mississippi St. is interesting at this point, even though they do have the games coming up against Texas A&M, LSU, and Alabama. The SEC has 9 of the top 27 best schedules and 11 of the top 44. The outliers are Alabama (#84), Mississippi St. (#107), and Georgia (#116). The bad ones may be better and the good ones may be worse, because when I factor in the third level (opponents’ opponents’ opponents), it evens out a little bit (or Alabama wouldn’t be in the top 3), but that gives you an idea of why Georgia is so low also.
Tennessee is Georgia’s best win, and they lost once again. Also, Georgia lost to South Carolina, which has since lost two in a row.
Not surprisingly, the SEC also has high numbers in the ratings. 4 in the top 11, 5 in the top 15, 6 in the top 22, 7 in the top 26. That’s half the conference in the top 26. There is a bit of a gap before the next SEC team (Ole Miss at #47), and then there is a four-team cluster (Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Arkansas) between #65 and #71. This leaves only Auburn (#97) and Kentucky (#107) as lower teams.
Full post
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