Well worth reading. Especially like Mandel´s point about the strength of the SEC. We know the conference is tought as ****, you don´t need to push that down our throats every time you see a camera or microphone.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/stewart_mandel/07/06/miles.usc/index.html
TBC
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/stewart_mandel/07/06/miles.usc/index.html
OK, it's official. What once sounded amusingly intriguing has now become a critical necessity.
USC and LSU have to play for the national championship this season. It is no longer possible to envision any other satisfying conclusion.
The nation's strangest and most unlikely rivalry of the past four years -- one that has thus far played out entirely off the field -- reached a new level of bitterness this week when the Tigers' increasingly rambunctious coach, Les Miles, made some strange and derisive comments about the Trojans.
"I would like nothing better than to play USC for the [national] title," Miles reportedly said in a speech to a heavily pro-LSU gathering in New Orleans. "I can tell you this, that they have a much easier road to travel. They're going to play real knockdown drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkeley, 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."
Forget for a moment the numerous, logical flaws in Miles' diatribe (i.e., the fact the team he's bashing beat SEC West champion Arkansas 50-14 last season). Forget for a moment the seemingly arbitrary shots at innocent bystanders Washington and Stanford. (Is Pete Carroll out there dissing Vanderbilt and Mississippi State at his booster functions?)
The real question is, why is Miles so worked up in the first place about a school 2,000 miles away? The answer: because his fans are.
It's not uncommon this time of year for coaches to go on the booster-club caravan tour to drum up support for the coming season. And in playing to the crowd, it's not uncommon for said coaches to take a couple friendly jabs at one of their rivals. (Steve Spurrier was notorious for this during his time at Florida.)
Miles' barbs, however, weren't directed at Ole Miss or Alabama. They were aimed at a foe the Tigers haven't faced since 1984 and aren't scheduled to play in the near future. Without context, they seem to come completely out of left field.
Yet if you know anything about LSU fans, you know the only way Miles could have played to his audience any better is if he'd broken out a baseball bat and started busting open a Nick Saban piñata. (Miles, a surprisingly animated showman, reportedly told a similar crowd on Signing Day, "We have a new rival in f---ing Alabama!") Over the past four years, Tigers followers have become nearly as obsessed with the Trojans as they are their own team. One frequent message-board poster on the LSU fan site TigerRag even goes by the nickname "OverratedSC."
As you might guess, it all dates back to 2003, when the two schools both laid a claim to the national championship. USC, excluded from the Sugar Bowl, that year's BCS championship game, beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl to finish No. 1 in the AP poll. LSU, by virtue of its victory over Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, earned the top spot in the coaches poll.
It was hardly the first split title in college football's poll era and it probably won't be the last. Just like with Michigan and Nebraska in 1997, or Miami and Washington six years before that, the Tigers and Trojans were both officially recognized as champions.
But apparently, one trophy was not enough for LSU fans. Instead of basking in the glory of their school's first such championship since 1958, many Tigers zealots immediately began assailing media outlets like this one, furious that USC was stealing their thunder. Theirs -- as any LSU fan will tell you in excruciating detail -- was the only trophy worthy of official recognition because it was earned through the agreed upon BCS structure.
Such indignation only grew deeper over the two seasons that followed, with Tigers fans fuming at the mere suggestion the Trojans were going for a "repeat" in 2004 or a "three-peat" in '05, culminating with a set of LSU fans actually erecting a billboard near the USC campus to set the record straight.
But like a bad Roadrunner cartoon, the Trojans keep finding ways to stick it to their wanna-be tormentors, most recently stealing coveted running back recruit Joe McKnight out of the Tigers' own New Orleans backyard (and allegedly doing so with some illicit help from former USC-turned-Saints star Reggie Bush).
Which brings us to the present. The preseason mags have hit the newsstands, and the Trojans -- for the third time in four years -- appear to be a lock for No. 1. While there appears to be no consensus on No. 2, the most common choice -- including this writer's -- seems to be the Tigers. It makes sense. No two programs have recruited more pure talent over the past five years (at least according to the recruiting rankings) than USC and LSU. Both went 11-2 and won BCS games last year. Both have playmakers up the wazoo on offense. Both return most of the starters from their already dominant defenses.
Can you smell the possibilities?
LSU fans would presumably kill for a chance to exact revenge on a program that's caused them so much frustration the past four years. USC fans have never seemed particularly moved by the Bayou Bengals' badgering, but they certainly wouldn't mind the opportunity to shut them up once and for all. In fact, the first topic on WeAreSC.com's message board Thursday was devoted to why the Trojans' program is "better" than the Tigers'.
Now, LSU's coach has gone so far as to insert himself into a war of words previously waged solely in cyberspace (or on billboards). That's sure to work followers on both sides into a lather.
But it still doesn't explain why he's mocking USC's schedule.
TBC