NFL

Les Miles Opens Mouth, Crazy Talk Billows Forth

Posted Jul 02, 2007 7:18PM By Brian Grummell (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Chiefs, LSU Football, USC Football, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10, SEC, The Word

Text SizeAAA

What is it about the SEC that compels folks to regularly combine a fetid brew of boastfulness with ignorance? The latest example Via The Wizard of Odds provides all kinds of quotable outward contempt from LSU coach Les Miles towards count 'em 1)USC, 2)the Pac-10 and 3)the Big 12/everyone else. The following comments were made during an interview with New Orleans radio station WWL as reported by Carl DuBois of The Advocate.

Let's go through this piece-by-piece, shall we? Analysis after the jump.
Les Miles, whose team is a popular pick to play in this season's BCS title game opposite USC, is calling into question the strength of the Pacific 10 Conference, suggesting the Trojans should be a cinch to make it to the Jan. 7 game in New Orleans because of a suspect league schedule.

"I can tell you this, that they have a much easier road to travel," Miles said. "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."
You could have said the same thing last year about USC and yet they lost TWICE in the supposedly weak Pac-10. That same two-time Pac-10 loser also won on the road against the eventual SEC runner-up Arkansas Razorbacks. The score of that game was 50-14, by-the-way.

How about 2005, when USC crushed Arkansas 70-17? They had far more competition that year against Fresno State and Arizona State than Arkansas.

Or look at 2004, when USC won by 11 on the road against Virginia Tech in the opener and stomped Oklahoma in the championship game 55-19. Their toughest games that season were in fact against Pac-10 foes like Stanford, Oregon State and UCLA.

Finally, how about 2003 when USC lost in triple overtime before a frothing Cal crowd and nearly lost the next week on the road against Arizona State before getting its act together and later demolishing a fine Michigan squad in the Rose Bowl. One of the Trojans' easiest games that year was on the road against the SEC's Auburn Tigers, a 23-0 victory. That's more than can be said for Miles whose road record against the Tigers is 0-1 after last year's dreadful 7-3 defeat. For many years now the pattern for USC under Pete Carroll has been to crush out-of-conference foes but struggle in about half of their Pac-10 games. The same thing is likely to happen this year as USC's efforts at going undefeated will be challenged a handful of times within conference play.

It is in fact the Pac-10 which provides the most consistent competition for its members and for USC. In the past 16 years, four teams have gone undefeated in SEC play. In that same time period, only two Pac-10 teams have survived conference play unbeaten. Think about that for a moment: over the past 16 years, the likelihood of a team going undefeated through SEC play is greater than the likelihood of a team going undefeated in Pac-10 play. That pours just a little bit of water on the SEC hype, doesn't it?

Pac-10 teams might not always be as talented, but thanks to the available talent, quality coaching and ability to scheme on both sides of the ball, the Pac-10 is incredibly difficult to survive without recording a few losses. The league might not be as deep as the SEC, but it may just be even more competitive.

Put simply, Miles' argument is both bogus and ignorant.

Miles does acknowledge that he'd like to play USC in this year's title game. But then, the game would be a virtual home game for his Tigers, playing in the Sugar Bowl. Tough talk, eh, coach? Somehow I doubt he'd be as comfortable asking for a piece of USC if the hypothetical title game matchup were in Pasadena.

Anyway, the tough talk didn't end with USC or the Pac-10. The remainder of the rant was more or less "ur conference is teh suck, we r hawt, tackle football, boom. w00t."
"The Big 12 is a conference that might have two really pretty good teams, maybe four. I think the Pac-10 may have one or two really good ones. The ACC certainly, arguably, has some quality teams.

"I don't think there's any conference out there that has as many quality teams as ours."
Ohhh kayyy coach. When do we get to kiss the ring?

My FanHouse colleague Brian Cook Is certain to be scratching his head at all of this. SEC fans are quick to forget that the Big Ten handed two favored SEC teams losses in bowl games last year. Traditional SEC power Alabama also lost, falling to Miles' former bosses at Oklahoma State. Bowl games tend to be a bit flukey, but the bigger picture here is that the SEC's dominance isn't as clear-cut as told by its backers.

Look, I like the SEC, the league has really grown on me. However, this kind of talk is insane. It's unsolicited, it demeans other conferences (whose members sometimes you know, BEAT SEC teams, not that anyone wants to talk about that) and isn't all that intelligent to begin with. It is talk that needs to be challenged.

After reading this, the fact that Les Miles has a vote in the coaches poll ... is frightening. The article suggests that he takes that task seriously, but his views and demeanor arguably show an inability to provide a fair vote on non-SEC teams. Is this a good thing?

Tags: Les+Miles, LesMiles

Related Articles

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

| 1 | 2 | 3 | Most Recent | Next 20 Comments

Fantasy Football Player Rankings

Fantasy Football Position Rankings
Keep your fantasy football team going strong with our position-by-position rankings.



NFL Team Photos




Latest NFL Photos