That was quite a game between LSU and the Gators; a true classic, to be sure. No one loves a Gator loss more than I do, but as a non-LSU fan I must comment on a couple of things that irritated me during the telecast.
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Can someone please explain to me why Coach Les Miles is so unloved by LSU fans? I'd take that guy on my sideline any day. The confidence he showed in his players on those 4th downs was tremendous. Going for the outright win was incredibly ballsy.
Yes, the win over Florida in 1997 was a wonderful and extremely loud game. I'm indebted to Medium Jim, who had an extra ticket for the event, and made my first (and only) time at Tiger stadium one that I'll never forget. Still, I don't need CBS and some LSU player telling me that the '97 win was so great
because Florida had previously won 25 straight
SEC games, and that the Tigers "proved" that they were beatable. Only eight games earlier, in 1996, the Florida State Seminoles "proved" that the Gators were beatable, but since it wasn't an SEC game I guess it doesn't really count..
Note to LSU fans: a rival is a team you actually play regularly. This supposed "rivalry" between LSU and USC is so artificial and lame. If you brag about how tough your conference is, but still feel the need to invent a rival you don't play... something's probably amiss. Seriously, who the heck is LSU's biggest rival? I personally have no idea. Florida? Auburn? Ole Miss? USC? Tulane? whatever team Saban is coaching?... someone clue me in. Does any
other team regard LSU as their biggest rival?
Perhaps I have a skewed view because I grew up in the state of Florida, but college football border wars and intra-state blood battles provide a whole 'nother level to the college football experience. Most LSU fans simply don't know what it's like to have their workplace or school or church full of fans from a rival school that beats you every other year or so. Trust me, it's a helluva lot easier to win or lose if you live in a "one school" state without a legitimate arch-rival.
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During the ESPN telecast of the FSU-NC State game, I giggled very immaturely when Florida Governor Charlie Crist introduced the FSU Offensive squad and made special mention of Seminole Wide Receiver De'Cody Fagg.
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Note to ABC: Thanks for including advertisements for Fall sitcoms on your score "crawl"! If there hadn't been updates every 15 minutes about Tuesday's "Cavemen" episode, I would've felt totally cheated.
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I don't know the details of Tulane's loss to Army, but they're assuredly gruesome. Last I saw, the Wave was up late, and appeared to have things in control.
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Congrats to Stanford, Kansas and all the other upsetters the past two weeks.
Labels: gays, Medium Jim, oyster, sports, tv
22 Comments:
Go LSU!!!
http://sharonisdelighted.blogspot.com/2006/07/tiger-rag.html
Les Miles was initially disliked because he replaced the national championship winning Sabin. A sort of "how could anyone compare" kind of thing. People didn't want to like him, but Miles is now roundly loved by most fans.
Why do you hold the blather of television announcers in such esteem?
The USC "rivalry" has more to do with the "split" national championship, and the fact that the two teams never met face to face to "settle it".
The rivalry was always with Tulane, but you know about that one, so much for intrastate rivals. I would have to say Alabama would be second. It died down in the last decade or so, as the Tide has not been the powerhouse it typically was.
I'd second everything Celcus said, except the Tulane rivalry was only competitive 25-30 years ago. I was at the game 35 years ago when Tu. won for the first time in decades and that was the most electric atmosphere I've ever felt at a game (I went to all the Saints games last year), but I don't know how big Tiger fans from other parts of the state still consider the rivalry, the player obviously didn't take it seriously. And, none of then was alive last time Tu. won.
A couple of other things about the Miles hatred. It doesn't help that he came from the Big 10, the need of SEC fans to assert their superiority makes them denigrate everything associated with the Big 10. There early doubts about Saban for the same reason. The main thing is, the Tigers have lost some games where it was easy to blame the coaching, and they had some scares where it was really easy to blame the coaching -- last year's Tennessee game comes to mind. I'm not sure if that was coaching or his QB's streakiness. Or whether you blame the coaching if an amazingly talented QB has has some really bad streaks.
Oh, stop bragging because you come from a state with four or five times Louisiana's population. Of course our biggest rivalries are going to be interstate. We can't help it if Auburn and Alabama are inconsistent and Ole Miss sucks. I guess that raises the question of why Texas doesn't have more good teams.
I think the situation at LSU is a classic case of "wanting to build a university that the football team can be proud of," which I suppose is better than having a university the football team is ashamed of, but certainly is a case of the tail wagging the dog--or tiger--here.
One thing that's a little odd about this, though, is that while LSU certainly has a football tradition, it's not like they've been the equivalent of an Oklahoma or Nebraska: for at least a few years in almost every decade since college football became the big business it is, LSU has had team that were mediocre at best...or worse. For example, I recall the howling for Nick Saban's--and Josh Booty's--respective scalps after a loss to Division 1-AA UAB several years ago.
Actually, an interesting contrast is with...U of Florida...this morning I was bored and checked out the website for the Gainesville Sun to catch their take on the game. What struck me, though, is that one of the big featured stories covered ...a forum organized by a UF student from Louisiana about life in New Orleans two years after Katrina and the federal flood.
Les Miles is unloved because he is an idiot. (Nick Saban was also unloved because he was a jerk.)
I'm sorry but stupidly almost blowing the game by going for it on 4th down when a field goal puts you in excellent position to win is not "showing confidence" it's actually desperate grasping. Sometimes even idiots get lucky. But this kind of coaching will NOT win a championship this year.
BSJD: a high population state has nothing to do with intense football rivalries. Auburn and Alabama is an excellent rivalry.
Your reminiscence about the uncomparably electric atmosphere of the Tulane LSU rivalry seems to validate my point here.
Jeffrey: a field goal was not a sure thing, and I don't believe that LSU had the superior team or superior game plan Sat night-- so Miles decision to go for it reflected an intuitive feel for what might succeed in a crucial situation-- had it not worked he would've been horribly second-guessed, but that did not stop him from immediately deciding what he thought would work best. LSU would not have beat Florida without Miles successful gametime decision-making.
I just disagree with that. I think they got lucky. If you're saying that stupid decisions sometimes bring about luck then I suppose you have a point. But the larger point that you have already made is that LSU was out-coached (inferior game plan) and largely outplayed on Saturday.
Other points:
I don't consider the USC thing a rivalry in the traditional sense. But there is some legitimate lingering bitterness over the refusal of the national sports media to recognize LSU's 2003 title in deference to a West Coast darling. If you need me to expound upon the massive anti-Southern and particular anti-Louisiana biases involved I can... but it might invovle lots of foul language.
Some of the other commenters are right about LSU-Tulane. At one time... between say my grandfather and father's generations... that was a classic and bitter rivalry between a state school and an Uptown New Orleans elitst.... okay so I almost started cursing again. In any event, it's hardly LSU's fault that Tulane decided not to keep up. I don't buy the argument that it has a hell of a lot to do with Tulane's "academic disadvantage" either but that's whole three pages of vitriol we don't have time for here.
What passes for rivals now are the SEC West schools the Tigers play every year. And SEC football is such that an adequate degree of hatred it generated to make beating Auburn a gratifying experience year in and year out. Although, it is largely minus the "workplace, church, and school" intimacy you describe. Although... I can't help but notice the large percentage of Rex Queens with Auburn degrees so... you know... that's something.
Jeffrey you're wrong about the field goal, but had LSU lost, Miles would be toast. I think that LSU is the better team. A few bad passes and a few dropped passes made it a cliffhanger. Florida seemed more fired up at the start, that might have been coaching, or it might have been catching them after a loss.
But there's a difference between being the better team and being the team that 's likely to do better in college football's bizarre overtime set-up. I would say that Florida looks a lot more dangerous in that situation, especially with Doucet out. If, somehow, both offenses are kept from scoring TD's, Fla. has the better kicker as well.
LSU doesn't really have any consistent rivalries. When I was there I think it was mostly Ole Miss. Auburn wasn't played consistently back then. Cholly Mac was coaching and the Bear was still at Alabama.
Oyster,
Population has something to do with having enough schools that are big enough to field good enough teams to take seriously. There's Auburn-Alabama, there's also Oklahoma-Nebraska. Big, serious, competitive in-state rivalries aren't all that common in small to medium sized states.
The dropsies were a serious problem and will likely continue to be. The LSU receivers are fine athletes but if you can't catch the damn ball what good does that do you?
I also think Doucet is overrated because he's the most experienced of a mediocre group. Demetrius Byrd, on the other hand, is underrated and the most consistent receiver over the past few games.
I should say something nice about the Tigers since they did win after all. And the two things that come to mind are, Flynn looked like he is slowly recovering some confidence in his injured ankle. And Jacob Hester is a tough son-of-a-bitch.
Interesting that the vibe here is that LSU was "outcoached" on Saturday night...and yet, after barely serving as a speed bump the entire first half, the LSU defense gave up one score on a busted coverage and not much else in the second half, and practically nothing at all in the fourth quarter.
Now, maybe the players kicked the coaching staff out of the locker room at halftime and came up with the game adjustments on their own...but I doubt it. Conversely, what was Urban Meyer's "Plan B" for when the game plan he'd prepared for the match was countered? It certainly seemed like one staff, at least on Saturday, thought on the fly a little better than the other.
Oklahoma-Nebraska is an in-state rivalry?
How about Georgia Georgia Tech.
The claim in the post was the following:
"college football border wars and intra-state blood battles provide a whole 'nother level to the college football experience"
I'm not trying to penalize the small states with only one big school, but small states with only one big school usually have a "border war" with an adjacent state with recognizably intense traits. Maybe I should've wrote "and/or" in that sentence.
Wikipedia of all sources provides an interesting and comprehensive explanation on the state of LSU rivalries, such as they are.
I was surprised to learn from Jeffrey and Wikipedia that Tulane dropped the rivalry for reasons of "academic disadvantage" instead of LSU dropping it for economic reasons (adding a yearly home game against a willing patsy rather than a permanent home/away series).
I'll have more to say about this later.
Hmm...
Well the short answer is, Tulane left the SEC for "economic" reasons which it later claimed to be "academic" reasons.
LSU has been reluctant to reestablish the series for economic reasons.
I think it's reestablished now for mutual reasons. LSU gets a petty sure win and Tulane gets a pretty good gate at home every other year.
I don't think that LSU has much of an economic advantage from a "willing patsy". They pretty much sell out every game and Tulane was pretty much of a patsy.
Usually the lesser team has to be bribed with a big payday to take part. The usual reason is so a team with aspirations can roll up early easy victories for a place in the polls, something Notre Dame pioneered.
I was using Oklahoma-Nebraska as evidence that that in state rivalries aren't that common in smaller states, for every in-state rivalry like Auburn-Alabama there's an OK/Neb.
Oklahoma-Nebraska, a border war?
Actually, those Florida rivalries aren't that venerable. I can still remember Hap Glaudi making fun of "Al Weatherduck's" FSU Seminoles getting trounced regularly in the early and mid-seventies. Nobody took them seriously until about 30 years ago and Miami didn't become a factor until the 80's.
Oyster, the problem for LSU has been that they've had intense rivalries with teams that were once powers (Tulane, Ole Miss), but then descended into decades-long bouts of mediocrity at best, while LSU's fits of average-or-worse play have been more sporadic. Nothing kills a rivalry faster than fifteen years of one team's kicking the other's ass every time they play.
Florida has had a long (1906) and storied football history, but the "U" says so much about their program "since 1983" on websites that you'd think they wanted you to forget they started playing football in 1926. Florida State was so average-at-best in most of the pre-Bowden years that they let Burt Reynolds play for them...LOL.
"Nothing kills a rivalry faster than fifteen years of one team's kicking the other's ass every time they play."
I guess that's indeed the problem.
FSU didn't have much success pre-Bowden, but FSU (it had a different name back then) was playing football prior to UF-- in fact, the UF program grew out of FSU's football team, as the university became all female and the guys transferred to UF.
When Steve Tensi was throwing to Fred Biletnikoff, opponents took FSU seriously. (But, granted, they didn't have much success until Bowden.)
