We might be two months from the kickoff of the college football season, but down South, talking gridiron trash is a year-round sport. Take LSU coach Les Miles, who decides to provide a little pre-season locker room material for the Trojans:
“I can tell you that I would like nothing better than to play USC for the title,” Miles said in a speech that radio station WWL made available on its Web site.
Playing to an audience largely populated by LSU fans, Miles saw an opening for a chance to plug the strength of the SEC, calling into question the strength of the Pac-10 Conference, which USC calls home.
“I can tell you this, that they have a much easier road to travel,” Miles said of the Trojans. “They’re going to play real knockdown drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkley, Stanford — some real juggernauts — and they’re going to end up, it would be my guess, in some position so if they win a game or two, that they’ll end up in the title (game). I would like that path for us.
“I think the SEC provides much stiffer competition.”
This warrants some comment. First, to whom it may concern, it’s B-e-r-k-e-l-e-y.
Second, if that “juggernauts” comment is supposed to be sarcasm, it’s not working. For example, two of those four schools—which are apparently supposed to be so far from juggernauts that it’s humorous to call them juggernauts—frequently show up in the Preseason Top 25.
Third, if Mark Schlabach is even close to right, then USC’s schedule is significantly more difficult than LSU’s. (There’s a thing called out-of-conference competition, Les.)
Finally, ESPN’s Michael Smith, filling in on “Jim Rome is Burning” earlier today, had this to say …
Look, coach, nobody doubts that the SEC is going to be a murderer’s row this season, and I agree it’s the toughest conference in college football, and your school produces as many pro prospects as anybody, but you might want to focus on, I don’t know, winning said conference before you start calling out potential title game opponents. Never mind that under Pete Carroll USC is 4-0 against the SEC, by an average score of 42-12, or that they hung 50 on Arkansas, the team that last year won the SEC West—Les Miles’ own division. You say you want to play USC, Les? Thanks to your comments, I’m sure the feeling is now mutual.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
UPDATE: Stewart Mandel has a nice piece on Lestergate, including an excellent treatment of the monomania behind the “onepeat” folks (and their ilk).
July 9th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
[...] In an effort to get ready for the season, here is Mark Schlabach’s breakdown of the best games each week—along with a list of teams that should be on upset alert. The Tennessee/Cal game on September 1 should go a long way toward shutting Les Miles up, while, in Week 2, he puts Texas on upset alert when TCU comes to Austin. The scariest thing for SC fans is that in Week 14 the upset alert is coming to the Coliseum (just like last year???). Posted by CommishRob Filed in SEC, BCS, USC, Big 12, Texas, Big “Ten”, Tennessee, The Biz, Cal, LSU [...]
July 10th, 2007 at 9:52 am
I don’t believe that Miles’s rant was justified. However, it strikes me as a bit foolish to spend text to point out the correct spelling of Berkeley unless one wants to attack the Baton Rouge Advocate as this is their transcription of what Les Miles said (not wrote). I would like to see a bit more sense from all parties that have commented on this matter. The professional journalists seem to have been up to the same stump speaking that Miles was when the comments first came out. And the message boards have of course been ridiculous. I would like to see someone admit a few very simple points that, to my eyes, seem important. 1) The SEC schedule from top to bottom is more difficult. 2) Over the past four years USC has proven to be the superior program. (Although the question of who was better in 2003 seems to be [and will forever remain] an open debate. 3) We won’t know about this year until it happens. Neither team is certain to end up in the Championship Game. (USC has to admit last year proves this point.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Fair points, William—I think we can all agree with your 1)–3). And I don’t necessarily want to attack the Baton Rouge Advocate, but I do think it would be nice if they spelled Berkeley right. Besides, we’re equal opportunity nitpickers: we’re happy, for example, to have a little fun with Pac-10 fans who have trouble spelling.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
[...] Our rundown of The 100 was preempted for a bit by Lestergate. But now that things have settled down somewhat, we thought we’d get back into reporting (and in some cases commenting on) USC’s appearances in college football’s “most iconic moments.” Next up, #57: In 1964, new Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian revived dreams of South Bend greatness. The Irish won their first nine games, rose to No. 1, and led USC, 17-0, at the half. But the Trojans rallied, and when quarterback Craig Fertig completed a fourth-down, 15-yard touchdown pass to Rod Sherman with 1:33 to play for the 20-17 upset, the Irish dream of another national title had to wait two years. Posted by gpen Filed in Notre Dame, USC, “The 100″ [...]
July 17th, 2007 at 8:21 am
[...] Nick contends that he never had a good relationship with the South Florida press, and that the call of College Football in the South drew him back. He also joins the growing list of SEC coaches who take shots at other major conferences, saying that the Big 10 (a conference he couldn’t win while at Michigan State, by the way) is very top-heavy: “No disrespect to the Big Ten, but most of the time there were three or four good teams in the Big Ten each year,” he said. “Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State were pretty good and then there might be another team or two that was better that year. But here (in the SEC) there were eight or nine teams that were all pretty good. That was a challenge to play with the kind of consistency you needed to be able to sustain that kind of performance. [...]
July 29th, 2007 at 8:26 am
[...] It’s not much of a stretch to say that most of the nation is utterly sick of USC by this point. Want proof that Troy is getting under the collective skin of college football? Why else would Les Miles (whose own LSU team looks, on paper at least, every bit as title-worthy as the Trojans) take some unprovoked shots at USC’s conference schedule? Why else would Jim Harbaugh appoint himself the Official Press Secretary of Trojan Football with his own equally outlandish comments? Why else would the star playmaker of another ranked power, DeSean Jackson of Cal, take his own cracks at the Trojans months before the two teams lock horns in Berkeley? (Actually, we know the answer to that one: Jackson’s mouth doesn’t have an “off” switch, even when he’s completely disappearing against the team the SoCal native claimed he was ready to show up.) [...]