Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I”d have thought LSU would be beyond the stage of new names popping up in their coach search by now, but that hasn”t seemed to happen yet.

So here”s the Wisdom on the latest names:

Houston Nutt: I”m not going to waste time evaluating him as a coach, because I don”t see it happening. The man”s an Arkansas alum and already turned down a good job (Nebraska) to stay with the Hogs. He”s sitting pretty at his alma mater, being competitive in the nation”s best conference. He shouldn”t and likely won”t leave.

Terry Robiskie: An LSU alum who”s kicked around the NFL in various coaching spots for the past 20 years. Currently the interim coach of the Cleveland Browns. The way I figure it, if he were a really good coach, he”d be farther along in his career, and if he had a deep love of LSU, he”d have come back as an assistant somewhere along the line. I”ll pass.

Jack Del Rio: Head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars; former Saints linebacker and assistant; married to a Coonass whose daughter just graduated LSU. Young guy who”s risen quickly in the NFL coaching ranks. Considering the he already has one of the jobs Saban was rumored to be up for a couple of years ago, why would he step back to college (except for the fact that he might be fired soon - not such a great thing on a resume)? I don”t see it happening. Plus, the dude looks like he”s had a lot of facial plastic surgery:

Freak.

Jimbo Fisher: LSU”s offensive coordinator. Jimbo, I”m sorry. It”s too good of a job to promote a coordinator to. Hiring you would bring back nightmares of Mike Archer. Good luck at your next job.

I think that wraps up the names that are out in public as potential LSU coach candidates.

My favorite remains Mack Brown, but we”re apparently not pursuing him. Of the names out there, I”d say the best of the bunch is Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, but if I had to put money on who we hire, I”d say it”s Petrino. He”s a “hot” coach that can be had pretty easily (no buyout, only makes $1 million with his new deal), and it wouldn”t surprise me to see him named coach Jan. 1 (Louisville plays a New Year”s Eve bowl, we play New Year”s Day) so recruits sitting down for the bowls hear about LSU”s new coach, not the uncertainty of not having one.

Worst choices in my mind: Les Miles or any of the NFL guys.

We”ll see.

If you pay attention at all to the news, you”ve heard the cries that the U.S. faces a potential terrorism nightmare because we lack the ability to adequately search cargo containers coming into the country for “dirty bombs” and the like. I think the figure thrown around is only 5% of containers are ever searched.

Apparently, though, the U.S. Customs Service does have sufficient manpower to identify and intercept cargo coming into the U.S. that may pose a risk of trademark infringement.

From The Smoking Gun: Feds seek to destroy seized “Ghettopoly” games.

Forgive me, non-football fans, but I feel compelled to follow the trail of LSU”s search for Nick Saban”s replacement.

Today”s news is that Tuberville is out (thank God), Butch Davis is out (I wouldn”t want a sickly coach who wanted a year off, anyway), we”re serious about Petrino and may be talking to Oklahoma State coach Les Miles.

So the Wisdom on Miles:

Les Miles: Sorry, I just don”t see it. Four years at OSU going 4-7, 8-5, 9-4 and 7-4 (before this year”s bowl). He”s been an assistant coach at Michigan, Colorado, The Dallas Cowboys and OSU, and he”s in his first head coaching job. His resume and record might have made him a good replacement for Gerry DiNardo five years ago, but not for Nick Saban now.

But Skip, you”re getting close … Big 12 is where you should be looking, just a little farther south. Namely, Austin.

I”m ignoring these rumors about Steve Spurrier unless some solid evidence is put forward that he”d leave South Carolina without ever coaching a game there.

So for today, it looks like Petrino is the most likely candidate. As I said yesterday, he”s potentially a very good coach, but he”s hardly proven himself in two years at Louisville (already a solid program), and I have to think he has Saban-like NFL aspirations.

Stay tuned …

And then Fonzie was gone …

I know he needed to tell his players in person, and that they were all gone until Christmas Day, but still. Dude, you seriously messed up some Christmas dinners.

Having spent so much time on the road in the past couple of weeks, my feelings about Nick Saban leaving have been colored largely by the Outlaw Country channel on Sirius. Good country music, of course, is all about cheatin” and heartbreak.

My initial reaction was echoed in the sentiments of Ween”s “Piss Up A Rope” (click for lyrics). But that”s a bit harsh.

Instead, I”m thinking Willie Nelson”s “Big Booty” is more in tune with my thoughts of our soon-to-be former coach. To wit:

She said I ain”t gonna fix you no more sausage;
biscuits and gravy on the side
“cause you done said the wrong thing to me baby,
and you can kiss big booty goodbye

Go on and find yourself a skinny woman
something a little more your size
and don”t come back to me a”moanin”
when she cuts you off of burgers and fries

LSU, of course, is Big Booty here. And the Dolphins are the sexy little skinny thing he”s leaving us for.

I hope she”s good in bed, Nick. Because the sexy ones expect you to stay in perfect shape, too. There won”t be any biscuits and gravy for you down there.

OK, first of all, this image on The Advocate”s (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) site this morning makes me want to puke:

Tuberville as LSU coach? God I hope those rumors aren”t true. Skip, if you”re reading this - don”t do it. The most rabid LSU fan I know has already said if we hire Tuberville, he”ll stop going to games. And I”m with him there. Tuberville is a slimy little jerk who doesn”t belong at LSU.

That said, there”s the serious business of picking a coach. Early talk, of course, has been about Butch Davis (former Miami Hurricane and [fired] Cleveland Browns coach); Kirk Ferentz of Iowa and Bobby Petrino of Louisville.

And The Wisdom on these guys …

Butch Davis: Fine job at Miami, I suppose. Bad job in Cleveland, and he”s admitted to being so delicate that he needs a year off to get his health back. No thanks. Go take some vitamins or something, Butch.

Kirk Ferentz: I can”t use my “The Big 10 sucks” logic anymore, since that”s where Nick came from, as a negative on Ferentz. And he”s done more with Iowa (three bad years, then 11-2 and 10-3 [going in to the Cap 1 Bowl]) than Saban did with Michigan State (his best year was his last, at 10-2. Otherwise he had about a .500 record). But Ferentz is an offensive guy, and LSU showed how defense wins titles last year.

Bobby Petrino: He could be a real talent, but I just don”t think he”s proven himself yet. Two years at Louisville when the program was already on solid footing? And he”s all about the big-play offense, which again isn”t our style. He”s got NFL and SEC experience, but he”s jumped around even more than Saban. Since 1989, he”s spent three years at Idaho, two years at Arizona State, one year at Nevada, three years at Utah State, one year at Louisville, two years at Jacksonville (NFL), one year at Auburn and just finished his second year back at Louisville. If he”s successful at LSU, do you think he”s sticking around?

And then there are the active NFL coaches being talked about (but not talked to until Jan. 2) …

Gregg Williams: Defensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins, former head coach of the Buffalo Bills. He”s apparently a defensive genius, hand-picked by Joe Gibbs to rebuild the mess Steve Spurrier created. He”s been in the NFL for about 15 years, and spent 11 years with the Oilers/Titans. No real college experience to speak of, so I”d have to question whether he”d want to leave the NFL and how effective a recruiter he”d be.

Mike Nolan: Defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. Similar story as Williams; longtime NFL guy, great defensive mind. He coached linebackers for one year at LSU back in the 1980s. But the official Ravens site even mentions him as a soon-to-be NFL head coach, so why would he get off that track, and if he did, how long before he”d jump back?

Mike Trgovac: Yet another NFL defensive coordinator (Carolina Panthers). He”s been in the NFL for 10 years and spent the 11 years before that coaching college defense. I”m not overly impressed with him.

And those, ladies and gentlemen, are the leading candidates - at least in public - to be the next coach of LSU.

Kind of depressing. Of those guys, I think I”d make a run at Ferentz.

But let me throw another name out there; one you LSU fans have heard before …

Mack Brown

Yes, Mack Brown, head coach of Texas. Loyal Tiger fans will remember the flirtations LSU has had with Mack over the years. We came close to hiring Mack when he was at Tulane and Bill Arnsparger left LSU in 1986. We thought briefly about it when Mack was at North Carolina and we fired Mike Archer in 1990. We thought more seriously about Mack when we fired Curley Hallman in 1994 (Mack had gone 7-4, 9-4, 10-3 and 8-4 at UNC during our Curley years), and dreamed of Mack - who went to Texas in 1998 - when we fired Gerry DiNardo in 1999.

Oh, how things might have been different for LSU in the 1990s if we”d had hired Mack instead of Archer.

Mack Brown won at North Carolina. He took a horrible team (they were 1-10 in each of his first two years), and absolutely turned them around. He posted three 10-win seasons in his last five years at UNC. And it”s worth noting that he stayed at UNC for a full 10 years …

Since moving to Texas in 1998, Mack has won at least 9 games every year. He”s won 10+ games each of the past four years.

His teams have fierce defenses and powerful offenses. They win in the smashmouth Big 12.

In short, Mack”s a winner. He plays our brand of football, he”s loyal and he”s driven.

But why would he leave Texas?

Because he”s not appreciated. See, despite compiling a 69-19 record over the past 7 years, Mack has won zero Big 12 titles (and therefore zero national championships) and will appear in his first BCS bowl this year - and that was the result of poll rigging.

This year Oklahoma will be playing for the national championship for the third time in 7 years, and Nebraska made it to the big game in 2001. And with Bobby Stoops building a new dynasty at Oklahoma, things aren”t going to get any easier for Mack in Austin.

It”s not that Mack should shy away from a challenge, but a coach can only take so much abuse for winning 9+ games every year (the site firemackbrown.com was just recently taken down after its owner acknowledged that Mack shouldn”t actually be fired). He”s a loyal guy (10 years at UNC, 7 so far at Texas), and should expect some loyalty in return.

So I hope Skip gives Mack”s agent a call, apologizes for passing him up for our last four openings, let”s him know about all the cool facilities Nick made us build - and throws a pile of cash at him.

A poem for you, in the spirit of Christmas:

“Twas two days before Christmas, by Cap”n Ken

“Twas two days before Chrismas, when all through the bayou,
Not a Tiger fan was stirring; they wouldn”t know how to.
Google News was reloaded in the browser with fear,
Dreading the word that St. Nick would no longer be there

The Tigers had twisted and turned in their beds,
While visions of Butch Davis (or Kirk Ferentz) invaded their heads;
And Bertman in his suit and that NASA guy in his new LSU cap,
Had just begun thinking of coaches to tap,

When out of the Athletic Administration building there arose such a clatter,
The Baton Rouge media sprang from their desks to see what was the matter.
Away to the presser they flew like a flash,
Tore open their notebooks, words ready to hash.

The lights on the podium all around the room,
Gave a lustre of brightness amidst all the doom,
When, who to our wondering eyes should appear,
But a smallish man in the turtleneck he wears all year,

With his Fonzie hairdo and clothes that were slick,
We knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his decision it came,
And he shouted the words attached to his name;

“Now, Dolphins they want me, they chase me with vigor!
They held out a few days so they could interview Art Shell!
The trash man will give me the ultimate power!
And here it is now, the anxious decision hour!”

And then, in a twinkling, we hear from his lips,
The decision he”d made, after many men”s tips.
As we held onto our breath and were ready to cry,
We saw a smile come across the face of this guy.

His eyes - how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
Surely the words he”d be speaking weren”t scary!
We leaned closer to hear what St. Nick he would say,
Nobody in America believed he would stay.

He blurted the words, to the press gave the news,
Driving WBRZ viewership and Google News views,
“I”m staying a Tiger, I love a good fight,”
“HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!”

[editor"s note: of course, this is all wishful thinking. And sorry if it"s a bit sloppy; I had to rush it out before any announcement comes.]