LSU’s Les Miles

Received two comments from Ramsay High grads to yesterday’s LSU threw the BSC Championship game? post.

From Baker Smith:

I KNEW something was amiss!!! The game was FIXED !!!! I’m NOT surprised…The Saban Nation paid Miles off. Where’s the NCAA when we need ‘em. They’re in cahoots, too. BTW…I need to google the meaning of “CAHOOTS”. I’m just a D—
A– southern boy.

My reply:

Are you serious, Baker? You really think Saban and Miles and the NCAA were in cahoots, that Miles got paid off? If so, you for sure are a D-A, but I can’t say you are southern boy, because I don’t know any southern boys who would believe an LSU coach threw a game to any team, especially to Alabama .

From Bobby Hewes:

Bama beat LSU so bad that it was embarrassing to some L fans. So this blogger would rather blame it on his own team and coaches rather than admit Bama was just much better. If LSU was not prepared and not motivated, they would have not stopped Bama 7 times in their territory and forced SEVEN field goal attempts. LSU was just outplayed in both games. Bama owes Iowa State! If they had not beaten OkSt, Bama would not have even been in the game!

My reply:

Thanks for writing in, Bobby. I agree re Oklahoma State – Iowa State game, it put Bama into BSC game. I read online that OS had serious tragedy in one of its sports programs, not football, a few days before the OS-IS game. Was opined OS might not have had their hearts in the IS game. Wonder how OS-LSU would have gone? Wonder how Bama-Stanford, Bama-Wisconsin, Bama Oregon State would have gone? As the Bham amigo, who sent me the New Orleans Rising link, said to me three weeks before the BSC game, those pair-ups would have provided lots more national interest and would have revealed, for the moment, the relative strength, or not, of the SEC re other conferences. Re what the LSU blogger posted, I have yet to see any news online or on TV re his allegations. I did see the Les Miles post-game press interview online yesterday, after googling “LSU threw the BSC” and I found one blog link re that topic by an LSU fan. In the post-game video, a New Orleans notable, had played QB for the Saints, was a sports journalist, or commentator, labored on for about two minutes about Miles not moving the ball down the field, instead of going laterally, passing, etc. Finally, Miles calmly asked, “What is your question?” The notable said that was his question, why didn’t Miles try to move the ball down the field? Miles said they did do that, but it didn’t work very well. Nothing worked very well for LSU, and if the reported pre-game fracas, or something close to it, happened just hours before the game, yeah, it could have affected the LSU players. However, Miles was head coach; the buck stopped with him. His players should have sucked it up, given they were 13-0 under him. His players knew what Miles knew: Lee had gotten mauled by Bama in the first tryst in Tuscaloosa, and Jefferson had played better than Lee after he went in to replace him. My Bham amigo told me that two years earlier, Lee had gotten mauled by Bama, which is how Jefferson came to replace him and was the fist team QB until he got in trouble with the law before last year’s season opened. Jefferson beat Bama last year, and in Tuscaloosa this past season – Jefferson, and the LSU defense beat Bama. As I told my Bham amigo before the BSC, Bama had nothing to lose in the BSC game but dignity, and LSU had everything to lose.

And let’s not forget, Coach Bryant, at the recommendation of Assistant Coach Gene Stallings, benched Joe Namath for curfew violation just before the Sugar Bowl against a highly-favored Old Miss team, and the Tide, led by backup sophomore QB Steve Sloan, went out and somehow won the game.

I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com