Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I’m looking forward to the Peach-fil-A Bowl tomorrow for one reason – it’s the end of this season. They tell me no national champion has even gone on the next year to lose five conference games. It’s an LSU season to forget, and I’ll be very happy to forget it.

Since closing out the season with the worst four-game stretch I can remember, Les Miles has proven himself to be a very capable human resources director. Leslie has managed to avoid firing Bradley Dale Peveto and Doug Mallory by finding them new jobs. Some (me) might prefer that he focus more on LSU’s needs than Peveto and Mallory’s, but Miles will end up Gumping his way around his horrible decision to not have a defensive coordinator this season. Hey, he didn’t fire those great coaches – they earned their way into promotions with other teams, and he’s sorry to see them go.

On its face, this may not end up being a forced shake-up of the defensive staff, but hopefully Miles is not delusional enough to think it’s anything other than that. You screwed up, Leslie.

So LSU will have a defensive coordinator in 2009, and it seems it will be John Chavis of Tennessee. That pick seems like a very Les Miles move. It’s safe, predictable and void of any imagination. Chavis is obviously not a “hot young coach” like Will Muschamp. He’s a veteran SEC defensive coordinator, which certainly isn’t a bad thing. Whether he can bring the fire of Muschamp and Pelini and whether that fire really matters remains to be seen.

As far as Chavis’ performance goes, Tennessee finished 4th nationally in total defense this season, which is really strong given the Vols’ lack of an offense. His Vols gave up 30 points to Florida (pre-Tebow pledge), which was the most points given this year. LSU, of course, gave up 50 points twice and 31 points three times.

His longer-term performance is less stellar. Going back to 2000, here is the Tennessee rank in total defense:

2008 – 4
2007 – 70
2006 – 50
2005 – 7
2004 – 45
2003 – 22
2002 – 5
2001 – 13
2000 – 13

Kind of a roller coaster ride of late. Those numbers suggest LSU will be really good in 2011. Until this season (33rd in total defense), LSU had not finished below 8th in total defense since 2002. LSU equals defense, so the optimist would say Chavis has done well with lesser talent at Tennessee and thus will do great with LSU’s talent. The pessimist would say Chavis hasn’t shown the ability to put a consistently-great defense on the field.

But ultimately we got the defensive coordinator position back after Leslie eliminated it last year, and we have an SEC veteran in the role. I’ll take that for now.

And on to the Value-Sized Number One Combo Bowl.

Going in to bowl season, the analysis focused on why Georgia Tech has been successful with their option attack. And the consensus has been that it’s a difficult offense to stop when you just have one week to prepare for it. But give a team a month to get ready and you can shut it down.

I think that’s a very good point, but I wonder how much focused preparation LSU has actually managed. The two guys pretending to be defensive coordinators have been looking for jobs – and they suck anyway – and Miles has been recruiting and looking to hire an actual defensive coordinator. I’m not sure where focused preparation comes in to play in that scenario. But Tech can’t throw the ball (95 yards per game), which is great news for LSU, which gave up an average of 301 passing yards per game in its last three contests.

So, silly me, I’m going to pick LSU. I think the run defense is capable enough to shut down a team that doesn’t throw, especially with time to prepare. Of course, Tech could work more of a passing game in to the mix to take advantage of LSU’s horrible pass coverage, which would mean all bets are off. But I’ll take the mix of a Jefferson-led offense and ability to control Tech’s offense in a bowl that has been good for LSU in the past.

Tigers 31 – 30

Late? You bet. There’s really no point in rehashing LSU’s humiliation at the hands of Arkansas. I began the process of forgetting that game and this season as soon as the game ended.

All LSU fans can hope for now is that Les Miles will be suitably smacked down by his A.D. and Chancellor to stop being a mentally-challenged moron and run the program as it should be run (i.e. hire a freaking defensive coordinator). Talk is that this will happen, but I have concerns that Leslie has or perceives that he has more power than his boss (who was hired this year) and his chancellor (who was hired this year). I could see Leslie strolling into meetings with his crystal football and Sugar Bowl trophy in hand …

But I guess we have to count on Leslie bringing in a strong defensive coordinator and let him and the other people on the staff who are smarter than Miles (everybody) make decisions going forward. I’m not sure I like that prospect.

Elsewhere in the SEC:

Goodness, UGA really blew it against Ga. Tech. A 10-2 year with losses to Alabama and Florida would have been a darn fine season, but now the Dawgs will struggle to finish in the Top 10 and keep that hype going into next year. Questions now turn to the decisions of Stafford and Moreno as to whether to head to the NFL. Neither is a Georgia boy and both are seen as hot pro prospects. The program’s immediate future swings heavily on those decisions (especially Stafford’s).

The Bama Iron Bowl blowout was on a level not expected, and the corpse of Tommy Tuberville being dragged through the streets of Opelika was the result. OK, that’s a bit more than what Auburn’s power players actually did to Tubs, but you get the point.

Florida managed 45 points in a swimming pool against Florida State. They play indoors this week.

Ole Miss slapped a Bye-Bye Sly-level smackdown on Mississippi State. I really hate to see Croom go. I guess not having the flash of Houston Nutt or the performance level of a Georgia, Alabama or Florida isn’t enough nowadays in Starkville. It’s a real shame.

South Carolina made LSU’s season look even worse, dropping the Tigers’ best-win team to 7-5 with a loss to Clemson. Lovely.

Tennessee gave an appropriate farewell to Phil Fulmer. Thank you, Phil, for helping LSU finish with a better record than Kentucky.

And it turns out Vandy is Vandy again. Thank you, Wake Forest, for helping LSU finish with a better record than Vanderbilt.

For the week: 4 – 4
For the season: 69 – 17

With the SEC Championship Game showdown this weekend most likely producing both a participant in the BCS Championship Game and the Sugar Bowl, bowl projections are falling out thusly:

The Capital One Bowl gets first pick among non-BCS SEC schools, which means the third-best team (plus factors of which fan base will travel to the game, etc.), and their clear pick is Georgia (9-3, 6-2 in conference). The come the Cotton, Outback and Chick-fil-A (Peach) bowls. And the sad state of the SEC this year means 8-4 Ole Miss, 7-5 South Carolina and 7-5 LSU will be the teams selected to go to those bowls. Kentucky and Vandy are the last picks with 6-6 records.

The Cotton must give preference to a West team, so their pick will be Ole Miss. And the Outback must give preference to an East team, so it’s Cock time in Tampa. That leaves LSU as the only choice for the Chick-fil-A, likely facing a hot local choice in Georgia Tech.

And that sucks.

For LSU to finish the season 7-5 and 3-5 in the SEC and end up in a really decent bowl like the Chick is a shame. It’ll just be one more rationalization of this season as “pretty good” and all that. I can see Leslie at the podium now talking about how it’s a great honor for his damn strong football team to once again play in such a great bowl game.

All season long, Leslie has been full of excuses, and most people seem to have bought them right up until the final humiliation in Arkansas.

- Auburn was a hard-fought victory over a great team. No, it was ridiculous that the game was that close.

- Mississippi State wasn’t as close as the score seemed. No, the Bulldogs put 24 on LSU when they only manged 2 against Auburn, 3 against Tennessee, 13 against Kentucky and 0 against Ole Miss.

- South Carolina was a courageous comeback. No, going down 17-10 to them was a harbinger for the rest of the season.

- Georgia was the inexperience of a young quarterback. No, it was the lack of defense that ended up handing the Dawgs 52 points. Even with Lee’s struggles, LSU managed 38 in that game, which should have been plenty.

- Alabama was also the inexperience of a young quarterback. No, it was the decision to give zero playing time to Jordan Jefferson and not shake up the offense a bit (after saying the Monday before the game that Jefferson would play).

- Troy was a historic comeback. Please. Troy was pathetic.

- Ole Miss was – I forget the excuses there. It was the first hint of realization that things are seriously wrong on the sidelines.

- Arkansas was the end of excuses.

The proper fate for this team to suffer is a trip to Shreveport, Memphis or Nashville to face the humiliation of bottom-tier SEC bowls. It should be the penance paid by Miles & Co. for completely mismanaging this season into a horrible one masked only by a really weak SEC West.

But what we’ll get is this unearned pride of playing in the Ga. Dome on New Year’s Eve as a stepping stone back to greatness. Lipstick on a pig.