Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

As the guy still holding the No. 3 spot at Google for Fire Les Miles, I feel a need to re-address my feelings toward Leslie. Googlers will continue to arrive at pieces I wrote three years ago, but for those of you who manage to find this piece, my current view of the guy standing at the front of the 2007 National Champions is as follows: - Winning isn”t what makes somebody a good coach, and losing isn”t what makes somebody a bad coach. Good coaches tend to win and bad coaches tend to lose, but the measure of that comes over many seasons and depends on circumstances. I think Mark Richt has proven himself a good coach for building Georgia back. Ray Goff showed himself to be a bad coach for letting Georgia slide to mediocrity. But is George O”Leary a bad coach because he went 12-24 in his first three years at Central Florida? His 10-3 record this year would suggest otherwise, but if you are to deem Les Miles a good coach simply for going 34-6 in his first three years at LSU, you have to call O”Leary a bad coach - at least until this year. It”s more complicated than that.

- I believe Leslie was ill-prepared to take over a program like LSU when he arrived. He talked nonsense when he was hired, he lacked good judgment early on, got completely outcoached in his first SEC Championship Game and was fortunate to draw an uninterested Miami team in the 2005 Peach Bowl. The 2006 season was frustratingly successful.

- It”s a bit of an understatement to say LSU was fortunate to play in the BCS Championship Game this season. Leslie had his share of moron moments all through the season as well. Holding that Crystal Football will silence a lot of critics, and that”s understandable.

- That said, I think Leslie is growing into the job. Compare Leslie”s first game in Tiger Stadium - where his Tigers sat on the ball with two minutes left to force overtime with Tennessee to five-for-five on fourth down against Florida and the surprise touchdown pass to beat Auburn this year. Much of that could be the difference between Jimbo Fisher and Gary Crowton, and Fisher wasn”t Leslie”s man. But while Leslie still seems to be dumber than wood much of the time, the overall execution has improved tremendously. The Florida and Auburn games this season were the first performances that left me respecting Leslie, so that”s progress.

- Leslie is making the transition from winning with Nick Saban”s players to recruiting and winning with his own. LSU is a powerhouse program again, which gives it a huge advantage in recruiting. If Leslie can keep winning and keep recruiting, that”ll show him to be a great coach. So far he”s won and he”s recruited well. But it takes time to prove his greatness.

- And for better or worse over time, Leslie is LSU”s man now. Do I buy this “loyalty to LSU” stuff as the reason he”s still in Baton Rouge? No. He wanted to go to Michigan, but the Wolverines and Leslie both were incapable of not bungling their talks, and the timing sucked. He”s right that LSU is a great job and he”s lucky to have it, but he”d rather be in Ann Arbor right now. Michigan”s big hire of Rich Rodriguez, though, means we have Leslie for as long as he keeps winning or until the Michigan job opens up again.

I support LSU, and I”ll support Leslie. He”s shown me signs of promise this year, and you can”t deny the power of the Crystal Football. I don”t consider him to be a great coach yet - but I”ll call him good. But every game is a chance to show what a coach is made of, so I won”t hesitate to criticize or praise in the future.

Last night”s BCS Championship Game started bad for LSU. Real bad. And that turned out to be good. Real good. Four plays into the game, Ohio State was up seven. LSU”s first possession went like this: Three-yard run / incomplete pass / misfired shotgun snap / punt from the six on fourth-and-24. Ohio State opened their subsequent drive with a 44-yard pass to the LSU 15.

Things were bad. And that was good.

The Tigers held Ohio State to a field goal to find themselves down 10-0 five and a half minutes into the game. And the shock of such a horrible start was just what the Tigers needed to get back into focus.

It shouldn”t be this way, and LSU knew that. Without the catastrophic beginning, the Tigers might have slogged along playing halfass football like they did against Tulane in the same building three months ago. Had Ohio State been up 7-3 at the end of the first quarter, LSU might not have found the fire.

But they did - in a big, big way.

After the Buckeye field goal, LSU rolled off touchdown drives of 80 and 66 yards and unleashed a ferocious defense that led to a blocked field goal on one OSU possession followed by the combo monster safety blitz / big hit on the QB / pick downfield thing of beauty on the next Buckeye drive and a beautiful sack on Ohio State”s final drive of the first half.

And there you had it. 24-10 LSU at the half. In a normal circumstance, this turn of events would demoralize the victim. In Ohio State”s case, it crushed them. OSU was uniquely positioned to be sent into a state of depression by such a thing, having seen it happen last year against Florida and living the past 364 days vowing to not let it ever happen again.

But it did. Once again the Buckeyes went from feeling like they owned the game to realizing they were being schooled. Yes, the SEC is much better than the Big Ten. Case closed.

Any hope OSU still had was removed by LSU”s 80-yard touchdown drive to open the second half. Killing themselves with penalties couldn”t have helped the Buckeye spirit much.

By the time Ohio State stopped the 31-point LSU run with a pick of Matt Flynn and a fourth-down TD pass, the game was already done. More indignity followed in the form of huge sacks and interceptions before the Buckeyes were able to score again against LSU”s backups.

So Ohio State limped out of the Superdome realizing their position in life relative to the SEC and these Tigers.

It was a beautiful thing.

Trying to get past the knee-jerk analysis of “Ohio State is slow, hasn”t played anybody, has sat around too long, etc.”, I”ve been poking around season stats and other things to get a handle on what to expect in the BCS Championship Game. And there are some good stats to back up Ohio State”s chances. Each team has won 11 games. Ohio State has lost once, LSU twice. LSU is stronger on offense (20th in total offense, 12th in scoring offense) than Ohio State (58th in total offense, 36th in scoring offense). Ohio State is a solid No. 1 in total and scoring defense; LSU No. 3 in total defense and No. 21 in scoring defense (LSU would be tied for 5th in scoring defense without OT points being counted).

On those counts, I think the edge has to go to LSU. With the defense healthy, LSU will be stronger than their season ranking, and LSU clearly out-performs Ohio State on offense.

I will say this, though. Ohio State dominated its competition, while LSU struggled in a number of games.

I like to look at how teams perform against their competition relative to the opposing teams” other games. Scoring 40 points against a team that gives up 50 on average, for example, isn”t that great. Neither is holding a team to 6 points if they average 3.

And this is where Ohio State is really, really strong defensively.

In seven of its games, Ohio State held opponents to 25% or fewer points than those teams scored in their other games. And Ohio State didn”t allow any opponent to score more on them than they averaged in their other games (Illinois was the only team to get more than 54% of their average and got 97% of their average against the Buckeyes). All told, the Buckeyes allowed 36% as many points as their opponents averaged in other games.

The Tigers, on the other hand, let both Alabama and Ole Miss score more than their average and had just three games where they held opponents below 35% of their average. On average, LSU allowed 56% as many points as their opponents averaged.

I don”t, therefore, poo-poo the Buckeye defense. It hasn”t been sufficiently tested, but it has clearly been dominant.

If you look at the two teams” scoring averages and points allowed, Ohio State has the advantage, with past performance suggesting they will hold LSU to 13.17 points (36% of LSU”s OT-discounted scoring average of 36.4 points per game). LSU would be expected to give Ohio State 17.93 points (56% of Ohio State”s 32-point average). That doesn”t add up to a win for LSU.

Offensively, LSU shows a very similar dominance. In all but two of its 13 games (discounting overtime points), the Tigers scored more points than their opponents” average allowed. And seven times LSU scored 150% or more of the average. Ohio State beat its opponents” average just seven times and scored 150% of the average five times.

Plug in similar formulas and past performance suggests LSU scoring 16.01 points (150% of the 10.7 points per game Ohio State allows) and Ohio State scoring 21.18 points (127% of the 16.7 OT-discounted points LSU allows). Again, that”s not in LSU”s favor.

But those stats don”t tell the whole story. As has been mentioned quite often, Ohio State has played a weak schedule, while LSU has played in the SEC (read: tough schedule) as well as going out of conference with Virginia Tech. And LSU played the second half of the season with a gimpy All-American anchoring the defense.

LSU beat two teams sitting in the top 10 of Sagarin ratings before bowl season and a total of four in the top 20. Ohio State”s best win was over Michigan, 27th in Sagarin ratings. Two of LSU”s wins came over teams rated below 100 by Sagarin; Ohio State claimed four wins over sub-100 teams. The average Sagarin rating for LSU”s opponents is 50.5 and the average of Ohio State”s opponents is 67.2.

Sagarin puts LSU”s strength of schedule at 21 and Ohio State at 62.

Against a much weaker schedule and one fewer game, Ohio State came out a good ways above LSU in defense and a good ways behind LSU in offense. But you just can”t ignore Youngstown State, Akron, Minnesota and Kent State when judging Ohio State”s season.

So I see things this way - Ohio State is very good defensively, and LSU will have to gameplan to their weaknesses and execute well. The Tigers have had five weeks to put together an offensive plan for this game, and they know what to expect from the Buckeyes. I think that”s very much to LSU”s advantage: strong offense that can throw a bunch of looks at you and knows what it”s up against.

On the other hand, Ohio State has to prepare for a defense LSU hasn”t used since the Auburn game. Glenn Dorsey”s injury at the hands of Auburn”s oh-so-innocent offensive line changed how the Tigers played defense. And Ohio State can”t like what it sees in the pre-chop-block defense. The only team to put up good numbers before the Auburn game was Florida, and Ohio State doesn”t have a Tebow. What they have is a more traditional offense like those rolled out by Mississippi State (45-0), Virginia Tech (48-7) and Kentucky - which LSU lost to in holding traditional QB Andre Woodson to a season-low 219 yards (in regulation) and Kentucky to season-low 250 yards of offense (in regulation).

I like both LSU”s chances of doing better offensively than Ohio State”s other opponents and the Tigers chances of shutting down Ohio State”s mediocre offense. It”ll take a strong gameplan and good execution (hold down the penalties and turnovers, guys), and whenever Leslie is prowling the sidelines that prospect makes me nervous.

But I like our chances. LSU 24, Ohio State 10