Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Could it be that LSU lost two quarterbacks today? On the same day that JaMarcus Russell (smartly) made the decision to jump to the NFL, WWL Radio has confirmed that freshman quarterback Ryan Perrilloux - the future of LSU football - is “under federal criminal investigation”. No, that”s not good.

I”ve been hearing rumors for about a week that Perrilloux is in some kind of trouble. I”ve heard everything from he”s been passing phony $20 bills to he”s going to be rung up on credit card fraud, identify theft and/or money laundering with cohorts at a casino. All of that, of course, is nothing more than rumor. Of course, until this afternoon it was all just rumor that Perrilloux is in trouble.

Given that “under federal criminal investigation” is what”s been confirmed by the U.S. government, this ain”t a batch of unpaid parking tickets.

So we may well go from having a proven superstar quarterback, a really strong backup and an assumed superstar quarterback to having … well … that really strong backup and some guys named Welker and Bunting. Not a great prospect.

Semi-Update: The Advocate (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) has a brief piece this morning re-confirming the investigation and demonstrating that Leslie is either blissfully unaware of things going on around his program or is lying.

Update 2: The Times-Picayune reports Perrilloux might not be in too much trouble. Let”s hope.

“Watching” the minute-by-minute live blogging of Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone today, I got more and more excited with each little feature detail coming out. No buttons - cool. Auto-rotation between vertical and horizontal views - awesome. Smart design for handling dialing and voice mail - great. A real OS and a real Safari browser for a real mobile Web experience - freaking fantastic. Everything about the device was stunningly great. Until Steve delivered the kicker - 8 GB for iTunes music/video, photos, etc. Boo. Seriously.

I”m having to manage down my iTunes library to squeeze things on to my 60 GB iPod with Video. 8 GB is way too little space for a device so well optimized to play video and navigate a music library. But, I had to keep reminding myself, this thing is a phone/communications device first, an iPod second. I”m not a $600 phone sort of guy, but just the functionality of iPhone as a communications tool makes this a compelling product.

What excited me, though, is the obvious implication that the no-button, wide-screen, layout-shifting functionality launched with the iPhone has to be the basis for the next generation of full-on iPods. There”s no way that”s not the case, and I would guess big-boy iPods that look and function like the iPhone are on the way later this year; maybe with those tiny new 100 GB hard drives inside.

So unless I get to buy one for work, I”ll steer clear of the iPhone this summer (although I imagine I”ll have one eventually). But watch out when this becomes the platform form the next generation of iPods. I”m totally on that.

As an LSU fan, I”m supposed to hate Florida. I can”t say I like them all that much, but I sure do respect them. Not that I didn”t enjoy the endless fun of the Zook era, but just like the SEC needs a strong Alabama, it needs a strong Florida, too.

And having Florida hand the oh-so-powerful Ohio State that big bag of their own dicks tonight is a great thing for the SEC. Ohio State, the pearl of the Big 10, had no game against the big, strong, fast Gators.

Except for a good “normal” running game, Florida had all the elements of a modern SEC powerhouse - big, fast, aggressive defense and big, fast offense. Their performance tonight was the perfect SEC-team game - 82 yards allowed; 372 yards gained. OSU”s Heisman Trophy winner completed 4 passes for 35 yards and accounted for a net total of 6 - yes 6 - yards of offense when sacks are factored in. It was a telling moment early in the game when a Florida defensive lineman chased down the supposed best player in college football.

The Gators didn”t get much respect because they had a lot of close games this year. I expect more credence will be given now to the idea that it”s easier to win big against Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana than it is to blow out Tennessee, Georgia and Arkansas. I”ve never been very impressed with Ohio State, and I picked Florida to win (I just didn”t note that here. I swear).

Would I have predicted this much of a nut cracking? No, but a powerhouse SEC team win over the best of the Big 10 shouldn”t be a surprise.

So well done, Gators. I”m glad our one ass-kicking this year came at the hands of the national champions. No word yet on whether USC is also claiming a national title this year.

Even before Fonzie landed in Tuscaloosa this week, there was a lot of speculation that a bunch of LSU assistant coaches might be on the move this off-season.

The Advocate (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) has a roundup of the latest stayings and goings around campus, and there are some compelling developments today.

A big rumor has been that offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher would jump ship to join Saban at Alabama. He”d also been talking to Florida State about their vacant OC job, but apparently that potential move has been halted. But the real interesting thing is the potential domino effect of Saban”s move that could land Fisher a big-time head coaching gig.

Apparently the Dolphins are considering Georgia Tech head coach Chan Gailey to fill Saban”s spot, and if that happens the Wreck - and their Athletics Director Dan Radakovich, who used to be an assistant AD at LSU - may tap Fisher for their head coaching job. That would beat the hell out of that UAB job, wouldn”t it Jimbo?

I would have understood Fisher”s move to FSU. Bobby Bowden could retire sometime soon, so getting a coordinator position and having a little patience could pay off. Moving to Alabama to coach for Saban? Other than maybe having more control over the offense that wouldn”t seem like a wise move for Fisher. He”s at worst a couple of years away from a decent head coaching job, and LSU will remain a better place to put up good offensive numbers. If Fisher ends up at Alabama, I think that says something not-great about Leslie.

Defensive coordinator Bo Pelini seems determined to move right to a decent head coaching gig, and apparently he”s under consideration for the Minnesota job. Having gotten serious consideration from Michigan State, it would seem a program like the Gophers would be ready to bring Pelini in.

In the case of Fisher and Pelini, those guys are clearly looking for a head-coach slot or career-building moves that will help them land significant head coaching gigs. And you can”t blame them for that.

One move that troubles me, though, is offensive line coach Stacy Searels” defection to Georgia to become their offensive line coach. A lateral move for a guy without ties to the new school (Searels is from northwest Georgia but played at Auburn) always raises concerns. Sure, maybe the guy always loved UGA - just not enough to go there - but his quote in the Advocate is curious:

“I’m tremendously excited about coming to Georgia and working for coach (Mark) Richt and the rest of the staff,” Searels said according to a Georgia news release. “I’m looking forward to being part of the Georgia football program that has such great tradition and one that I know has a great future.”

What does he mean by “one that I know has a great future”? That seems to say he doesn”t believe his current program has a great future. Maybe he butted heads with Leslie and just threw in that parting jab. But it seems he was not a happy camper for whatever reason.

Feeling better about LSU is strength and conditioning coach Tommy Moffitt, who turned Saban down flat. I don”t know what the training facilities are like at Alabama (I imagine they ain”t bad), but I would bet the money LSU has put into their facilities over the past five years is an appeal to a strength coach. And it”s nice to win at least one small battle with Fonzie.

I think it”s pretty clear that Fisher and Pelini will be gone very soon. Along with the slow bleed of Saban”s recruits to graduation and the NFL, rebuilding the coaching staff (always the price of success) will be one of Leslie”s biggest challenges in the years to come.

I was pretty amused by this PIN pad I saw at a retailer today:

So I guess that means 4, 5 and 9 are used less often in PIN numbers? Mine has one of those digits, so who knows?

Obviously, the Sugar Bowl went well for LSU. A lot of credit goes to Bo Pellini for the second-half defensive adjustments that put an end to Notre Dame”s frustrating ability to run the ball (they never had the pass) in the first half. And early and late, LSU showed off JaMarcus” arm and our receivers” speed. I think we could have had 50-yard pass plays any time we wanted, but I guess there”s something to be said for establishing a balanced offense, and Notre Dame pretty much gave us the 8-yard out route all night, so you can”t turn that down.

It was all as expected - Notre Dame is not a very good team. But LSU didn”t take a win for granted; didn”t fall into the Oklahoma trap and played their game. Credit should go to Notre Dame for figuring out how to have an offense in the first half, but clearly all they had was a decent gameplan going in. Their talent couldn”t compete or evolve to meet LSU”s adjustments.

Leslie deserves a lot of credit for benching Jessie Daniels and Trindon Holliday for whatever trouble they got themselves into in the French Quarter. That”s strong leadership, so well done.

And now that the season is over, the questions are where will JaMarcus and Jimbo be next year.

I can”t imagine any NFL GM not taking JaMarcus ahead of Brady Quinn, and JaMarcus would look great in Raider silver and black. The NFL is his for the taking. Will he go? Hard to say at this point. Is he driven by a Heisman campaign? Does he worry about not having Bowe and Davis to throw to next year? How much does the chance to beat Nick Saban (who recruited him and left after his redshirt freshman year) mean to him? How much does LSU mean to him? He won”t likely be playing for draft position next year, so the question is more about what he wants to accomplish at LSU than his chances in the NFL.

LSU will be fine if JaMarcus bolts. If he comes back, that”ll be great, but the fallback is Matt Flynn and Ryan Perrilloux, and that ain”t bad. Perrilloux needs to be developed for his starting gig in 2008, so Matt may have a lonely year on the bench next year if JaMarcus is back. That would be a shame for Flynn, who”s a really talented quarterback.

As for Jimbo, there”s speculation now that he might be tapped as offensive coordinator for Fonzie”s staff at Alabama. I think the chances of Jimbo bolting LSU for someplace new are pretty high this offseason, but would he leave a strong LSU program just to work for Saban at a reeling Alabama? Fisher isn”t far from getting a head-coaching shot, so it seems his next move would either be as a head coach or at a program where he has future potential to take over the big job. And Alabama ain”t that place. Florida State might be, though. If he was offered that job, he”d have a fighting chance to take over when Bobby Bowden is finally put out to pasture. I”d see that or a smaller-college head job being more likely than just jumping over to Saban”s ship.

To wrap up the LSU season, pretty strong - all things considered. Losses to a team in the BCS title game and 11-2 Auburn; wins over two 10-win teams, a 9-win team and an 8-win team. LSU”s strong season was somewhat inflated by a weak SEC West, but the end result was really strong and sets LSU up for a high pre-season ranking in 2007. And next season will be ripe for success with Florida, Auburn, Arkansas and South Carolina at home, plus a quality non-conference opportunity in Virginia Tech (at home). We have to rebuild our secondary and have some holes to fill here and there, but we”re set up for success and the expectation will be for us to win the West. Short of that will be a bad year.

So back to Fonzie. I guess there are a lot of people who are pissed off because Saban didn”t figure out how great a bigtime college job is until after he left LSU. I”m not bothered by that; I don”t think Nick was an LSU lifer; he”s an opportunist. Alabama is one of the really big jobs in college football (or was - and Nick figures it will be again), and he would have left for there or Michigan or Penn State or Notre Dame at some point anyway.

Saban at Alabama is good for the SEC. The story of the carpetbagger choosing a powerhouse SEC program over the NFL is a good one. And with his former defensive coordinator Will Muschamp at Auburn and the team he won the national championship with a yearly opponent, it makes Spurrier coaching South Carolina look normal. Alabama should be a football powerhouse; that”s just the way the world should work. And LSU should have to be good to beat them. I don”t wish for 11 weak teams in the SEC so LSU will seem good. I want LSU to be better than nine other strong SEC teams. If we”re good but not as good as a great Alabama some years, I”m fine with that.

The SEC now has four schools with undeniably great coaches - Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia - and another four coaches that have to be considered strong at least - LSU, Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas. Ole Miss and Mississippi State have guys who are supposed to be good but haven”t shown it yet. And then there”s Vandy and Kentucky.

That adds up to an incredibly strong conference, and that”s good for the SEC and for LSU. I welcome the challenge of a Fonzie-led Tide.