Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I”m not one of the LSU fans who hates Nick Saban for leaving Baton Rouge and now winding up in Tuscaloosa. As I”ve mentioned before, he”s a mercenary and a darn good coach. LSU was never going to be his last stop, and I doubt Alabama will be, either. So before I get into predictions for the weekend, a tribute to The Fonz:

Now, outside of “the game LSU”s been waiting 10 months for” aspects of tomorrow, the LSU / Bama game is - this week - the fight for first place in the SEC West. Alabama still has to play Auburn, so Fonzie”s boys have a long way to go even if they get past my Tigers.

After putting up 41 points on the worst defense in the SEC (Tennessee - look it up), Alabama fans are back in the “we”re good!” mode they adopted after beating Arkansas (now 1-3 in the SEC) to start the season 3-0. They don”t talk so much about losing to Georgia and Florida State and barely surviving Houston and Ole Miss.

Fact of the matter: Alabama hasn”t beaten a team that”s currently ranked in the top 25. The only ranked team they”ve played is No. 10 Georgia. The Tide is No. 5 in total and scoring offense in the SEC, No. 8 in total defense and No. 6 in scoring defense playing a weak schedule.

LSU, on the other hand, is No. 3 in total offense in the SEC, No. 4 in scoring offense and No. 1 in total and scoring defense. The Tigers have beaten three currently-ranked teams and LSU”s only loss was to still-ranked-by-humans Kentucky.

Of course, stats and past performance don”t mean too much when you”re talking about an SEC game like LSU / Bama. The Tigers are clearly the more talented team and have the ranking and track record to prove it. In Tuscaloosa against your old coach in a game both sides recognize is full of soap-opera drama, however, the key for LSU is execution.

On offense, the Tigers need to avoid turnovers and penalties - and especially avoid the temptation to build on the Les Miles “crazy coach” reputation. Just throw athletes at Alabama and pick apart Saban”s vulnerable defense.

On defense, the health of Glenn Dorsey may be key, as LSU needs to pressure John Parker Wilson and shut down the run. How well the big guy can get around after Auburn”s cheap and illegal shot to his knee remains to be seen.

But above all else, LSU needs to take the Saban-bred emotion out of the game. The Tigers are playing for the SEC West title, not to show Fonzie he shouldn”t have left Baton Rouge. Let Alabama get caught up in all of that; LSU is the superior team and needs to remember that.

LSU 24 - 17

Elsewhere in the SEC:

No. 26 South Carolina at Arkansas - The Cocks have dropped two straight to SEC East teams, which puts S.C. back in the middle of the pack where they belong. Arkansas is simply not very good. Welcome to the last throws of Houston Nutt. Cocks 31 - 23

Vandy at No. 20 Florida - Gators 48 - 20

Elsewhere in SEC teams playing patsies:

Troy at No. 10 Georgia - Dawgs 48 - 17

Tennessee Tech at No. 16 Auburn - War Eagles 20 - 10

ULL at No. 27 Tennessee - Vols 56 - 24

Northwestern State at Ole Miss - Rebels 7 - 6

The fine folks over at Fanblogs have brought to light some fantastically bad “journalism” on the part of CBS college football talker Spencer Tillman. Basically, Tillman has no idea what he”s talking about; saying Tommy Tuberville used to be an assistant coach at LSU and things like that. One might think people who are paid to talk about college football might be able to write accurately about it, but whatever. What gets me as a media observer is the CBS Sportsline simply changed the content of Tillman”s piece to be accurate (in the part others pointed out was wrong) without any note that the original content was unbelievably wrong.

The content in Google”s cache reads:

Coach Dennis Franchione at Texas A&M is counting the days. Tommy Tuberville, who is a constant winner at Auburn, could be in line at either Texas A&M or LSU. LSU fans that still harbor distain for Tuberville might be wise to consider his 5-2 record against Alabama. And, we all know how important that game will become for the foreseeable future. Tuberville still has a house near College Station and was an assistant at LSU.

While live on the site is now has:

Coach Dennis Franchione at Texas A&M is counting the days. Tommy Tuberville, who is a constant winner at Auburn, could be in line at either Texas A&M or LSU. LSU fans that still harbor distain for Tuberville might be wise to consider his 6-2 record against Alabama. And, we all know how important that game will become for the foreseeable future. Tuberville still has a house near College Station and has a key assistant, Will Muschamp, who is familiar with the “LSU” way, having served as defensive coordinator from 2001-04.

See? Spencer wasn”t wrong about that at all!

Props to the writer in Huntsville who called Tillman on his basic non-understanding of facts and shame on CBS Sportsline for just brushing over the errors and correction with nary a note about information they originally published being laughably wrong.

Oh, and while you”re at it CBS, Tillman also says this:

Les Miles is probably headed for Michigan because Lloyd Carr is likely to hang it up at year”s end (despite an impressive seven-game recovery after an 0-2 start). Miles” contract allows for one out: the Michigan job.

But what I understand from numerous published reports (easily found through Google) is that Miles has a clause that says if he leaves for any job other than Michigan he owes LSU $500,000, but if he leaves for Michigan he owes LSU $1.25 million.

I think you may have a factual error there. CBS, you might want to change that - and not tell anybody you did. And somebody might want to double-check the rest of the “facts” Tillman has laid out.

It”s unclear whether Les Miles will even suit Ryan Perrilloux up for the Alabama game Saturday [Perrilloux will not make trip to Tuscaloosa], but it”s clear that after whatever went down at The Varsity (the Baton Rouge live music venue, not the famous Atlanta drive-in) last Thursday, Ryan is once again in Leslie”s dog house. Never-used freshman linebacker Derrick Odom was charged with a misdemeanor and dismissed from the team, but no charges have or likely will come against Perrilloux. Odom was apparently captured on video - along with two others who have not been identified - coming back to The Varsity after hours, faces covered, trying to get into the place and ultimately smashing the window of an SUV. Derrick, I hope you enjoy junior college.

But the Perrilloux situation is much murkier and odd. It”s been reported that Perrilloux called his lawyer early Friday morning about the Varsity fight that started a string of allegations, so he was probably at the club and somehow involved in the fight. Almost 24 hours later, a Varsity employee told police that Perrilloux had pointed a gun at him, but later decided to drop the issue and said he could not pick Perrilloux out of a photo lineup.

See if you can:

Now, I know TV camera men have a hard time telling Perrilloux apart from Kelvin Sheppard when they”re both standing on the sideline wearing No. 11, but you”d think somebody who says “Ryan Perrilloux pointed a gun at me” would be able to identify Ryan Perrilloux in a photo. Obviously that situation smells of a Varsity employee who was making things up or an attempt to not have The Varsity / Chimes associated with the ultimate demise of Ryan Perrilloux (they do a fair business on game weekends, you know).

So Perrilloux may have done nothing worse than being out at The Varsity late on a Thursday night during LSU”s off week and being with guys who got in a fight. Yet Les Miles seems to have banished Perrilloux once again, not referring to him by name when discussing the quarterback situation this week and holding him out of practice all week and announcing today he won”t play Saturday because he”s missed practice.

Is that fair? Probably not. But Perrilloux has once again made himself a distraction for the Tigers, so he”s lost the benefit of the doubt. LSU players say their coaches constantly reinforce the idea that football players are targets and to always be aware of where you are, what you”re doing and who you”re with. For a guy like Perrilloux - poised to be the starter next year, likely to have a shot at the NFL and carrying the weight of two prior off-field problems - the best idea is to just avoid situations like he found himself in Thursday night. And for God”s sake, if a fight breaks out, walk the other way. Explain to your boys that you”ll give them $100,000 when you sign your NFL deal instead of getting their back right now.

I wouldn”t look for Perrilloux to get much more than mop-up duty the rest of the season. Would Leslie”s attitude be different if Matt Flynn”s ankle were still gimpy? Maybe so, but the fact of the matter is Perrilloux isn”t a big part of LSU”s offense, so it”s an easy choice for Miles to make.

I”ve been a proponent of more Perrilloux playing time, but Miles and Gary Crowton haven”t exactly structured the gameplan around him seeing a lot of action. I can”t find the stats for total snaps played, but his game-by-game pass attempts / rush totals look like this:

Mississippi State: 6
Virginia Tech: 9
MTSU: 33 (Flynn injured)
South Carolina: 9
Tulane: 5

Florida: 7
Kentucky: 7
Auburn: 5

Even with Flynn”s injury and Perrilloux”s 298-yard night against MTSU, it”s clear the trend is not toward a deeper involvement for Perrilloux this season. The Tigers might find themselves in trouble if Flynn goes down (the other alternatives being the guy from Harvard who”s not in the media guy and taking the redshirt off of Jarrett Lee), but Miles clearly believes he can win with Flynn and Perrilloux”s poor judgment will quiet the calls to get him into the games more often.

Only time will tell the fate of Ryan Perrilloux. Will he finally heed the advice of his coaches and just stay home at night? Will he continue to be in the wrong places and find himself off the team? Will he end up in Mike”s cage threatening tiger-cide late one night? We shall see.

But for the rest of 2007, don”t expect to see No. 11 on the field much - except on kicks, and that”ll be Kelvin Sheppard.