LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Notes Written on a Casual Friday,
44 Days From Kickoff:
*The questions have stopped now that the three-day SEC Media
Football-palooza is over in Hoover, Ala., but I've ordered an overtime session:
Louisiana State (129 votes) over Alabama (65) to win the
league, by a margin of nearly two-to-one?
Are you serious?
I know the Crimson Tide lost half its starters, including running
back Trent Richardson as well as the most relentless pieces of its defense. I
realize Alabama has to play the Tigers in Baton Rouge, Arkansas in Fayetteville
and Missouri in Columbia.
This is still Nick Saban vs. Les Miles.
That's John Wooden vs. Lefty Driesell, Don Shula vs. Jerry
Glanville, Humphrey Bogart vs. Don Knotts.
Give me Alabama and Saban until Miles and his LSU coaching
staff prove they can cook up a more 21st Century game plan than the
one that generated five first downs, 92 yards and zero points in Bama's 21-0
win in the Bowl Championship Series title game last January.
Saban has his quarterback and four offensive line starters returning.
Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon will run the ball. He'll assemble the rest of the
working parts. Recruiting has never been an issue for Saban.
*I scanned the transcripts from interviews with all 14 SEC
head coaches. One guy was asked a question about his school's basketball
program.
How'd you guess?
*To be fair, Les Miles was
asked about the Stony Brook baseball program, the one that strolled into Baton
Rouge and made its way to the College Baseball World Series by handling LSU.
*Make a note of this: Even though Kentucky defeated
Tennessee last season and finished one game ahead of the Vols in the SEC East
standings, Tennessee coach Derek Dooley, strangely, did not field the "Hot
Seat" question that was tossed at Joker Phillips of Kentucky.
Perhaps it was because Dooley delivered this pre-emptive
strike: "The SEC has enjoyed taking advantage of our tough times. But there's a
nice mood on our team right now that you're not going to have Tennessee to kick
around any more."
Could be. Until the Vols edge back into contention in the
SEC East, Dooley's seat has to be just as toasty at Phillips'.
*Ole Miss received one vote to win the league? It's time to
pull Archie Manning's credential.
*Miles, of course, was asked if he has devoted much time to
watching replays of his offense, which looked as if it was playing seven
against 14 in the Alabama game.
"I've seen that a couple of times," he said. "There weren't
that many plays for us on offense to spend that much time."
And what does Miles say when LSU fans ask him why the Tigers
looked so outclassed?
"What happened was we played our 14th game," he
said. "And we didn't play as well as we did in our 13."
That 14th game made it seem as if LSU finished
1-13, not 13-1.
*Kentucky center Matt Smith knows what everybody is
expecting from the Wildcats: Not much. The Wildcats have been picked seventh in the
SEC East in every magazine I've purchased.
"Those people that pick the pre-season rankings don't see us
in the summer, and they don't see what we are doing in between those white
lines," Smith said.
*I can't close SEC Media days without an appearance from
John L. Smith, who certainly seems primed to shoot from the lip at Arkansas
precisely the way he did at the University of Louisville.
Smith was asked, one more time, to explain his penchant for
jumping out of airplanes and running with bulls in Spain.
"I keep looking back at my history," he said. "My Grandad
came to this country when he was a kid of 12 years old. His folks put him on a
boat and said, ‘Go to America.' What kind of adventure is that? Maybe it comes
from that? I don't know.
"But I've never been one to turn away from an open door, an
adventure to go do something. I think life is like that."
Copyright 2012 WDRB News. All Rights Reserved.
Nick Saban and Alabama have everybody else playing for second place in the SEC.
