Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

This is too freaking funny. Former Auburn coach Pat Dye loses his pants - and not just any pants; awesome Judge Smails plaid golf pants - in an Alabama lake in the mid-80s. Because of the drought, the pants resurface and Coach Dye is finally reunited with them.

And the story is “broken” by the enterprising Lake Martin Magazine. Too much goodness here to not note.

I saw this snippet today from the SEC spring meetings:

Saban’s LSU reunion a lonely ride
Tide coach will be lightning rod for ire

By Ron Higgins
Thursday, May 29, 2008

DESTIN, Fla. — Alabama second-year football coach Nick Saban is a detail-oriented guy.

Just the other day, for instance, Saban was discussing with his coaching staff the itineraries of the 2008 road trips, which include former LSU coach Saban’s first trip back to Baton Rouge on Nov. 8.

“We talk about where we’re staying and who’s going to ride on what bus to the games,” Saban said on Wednesday at the SEC’s spring business meetings. “Somebody on our staff — I’m not going to tell who — said, ‘I hate to tell you this, but when we play LSU, ain’t none of us riding on your bus.’”

Now, Baton Rouge can certainly be a hostile place (which isn’t a good thing, fellow LSU fans) for visiting teams to navigate through; especially the part between the gates of LSU and their locker room. But does anybody who had some great loathing of Fonzie last season for having left LSU for the NFL and then come back to coach Alabama still give a damn?

I mean, we beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa on the way to the national championship and Fonzie managed only a 6-6 regular season and a bowl trip to Shreveport. Then Leslie spurned his beloved alma mater (they say) to stay at LSU because he digs us so much.

I doubt most Tigers fans will ever fall back in love with Saban, but who’s still holding so much hate? If you are, just let it go.

This is the time of year when people pushing playoffs for major college football like to roll out their flawless plans for how to make college football championships as debate-free as the NFL. I’m against playoffs for major college football, but even so I think I can come up with a better plan than what’s being put forth - typically the “seeded” set of 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 teams that would fight out a traditional playoff schedule.

And, as a fan of the team that won the BCS title in 2007, I should point out that I was just as against a playoff when LSU finished 11-2 with no title in 2006 as when they finished 12-2 with the BCS title last year.

At the core of my plan are two assumptions:

1) Until you reach Bowl Season, major college football is the most exciting, dramatic and interesting sport there is. That can’t be messed with. Stanford upsetting USC or Kentucky stopping LSU on 4th down in overtime must matter or you lose the greatness of the game.

2) There will never be surety in selecting teams to participate in a championship system. This is not a league like the NFL where you have 32 teams playing 16 games in a roughly equal schedule. There are 120 teams playing 12 or 13 games, including games against teams not among the 120 D-I teams. Selecting 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 teams to be in a playoff would always be a highly subjective exercise.

So, then, what to do? Just build upon the elimination system already in place for many conferences.

The SEC, ACC, Big 12, MAC and C-USA already use the conference championship game format and every other conference except the Big Ten plays a full round-robin schedule to name a sure champion. Then you have the four “independents” in D-I.

Therefore, after the regular season you’re currently left with 10 undisputed conference champions, likely two Big Ten teams (Ohio State and Michigan, no doubt), Notre Dame and at most three other teams who could legitimately claim a place in the BCS title race (sorry, Georgia). The 120 teams become 16 just through the course of the season.

But I’m sorry, Big Ten. You have to get with the program. You’ve got 11 teams and play 8 conference games. That’s pathetic. If you and Notre Dame want to be in a national championship mix, suck it up and get together. You’ll be 12 teams and have a conference championship game.

Army and Navy, welcome to the Big East and a 10-team, 9-game schedule. Western Kentucky, meet the Sun Belt.

This, however, leaves us with 11 conference champions in the mix. We need an even number. Time to consolidate and shuffle the mid-majors. C-USA, MAC, WAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt are full of hasty cast-offs from failed conferences and illogical associations (such as La. Tech being in the WAC and TCU being in the Mountain West). Figure out how to put the 51 teams into four conferences. The MAC already has 13 teams, so three 13-team conferences and one 12-team conference all with conference title games is a good way to make the mid-major teams earn a shot at the big time. Bye-bye Sun Belt is what I figure, along with re-shuffling to create better regional lineups.

Now we would have 10 teams in the mix. Those would become five through bowl games. And I’m strongly for preserving the bowl traditions.

- Sugar Bowl: SEC v. Big 12
- Rose Bowl: Pac-10 v. Big Ten
- Orange Bowl: ACC v. Big East
- Fiesta Bowl: WAC v. Mountain West
- Cotton Bowl: C-USA v. MAC

All the other bowls would happen as usual. I gave the fifth “qualifying” bowl to the Cotton instead of the Peach because the Peach is a darn good SEC / ACC bowl and nobody cares much about the formerly-significant Cotton.

After the five qualifying bowls (all played on New Year’s Day, by the way - and no other bowls that day), the two teams who won their bowl games and are rated best by the BCS system would play in the BCS Championship Game the second Saturday after New Year’s Day (unless New Year’s Day is a Saturday - then it’s the next week). That game would rotate among the five sites.

And you’ll notice that the bowls would feature consistent conference matchups, not “seeded” matchups that change. You’ll also notice that the Sugar, Rose and Orange match the big boys, while the Fiesta and Cotton put the mid-majors together. That’s because this is not a playoff. If a Boise State that beats BYU in the Fiesta Bowl ends up ranked ahead of a Georgia that beat Texas in the Sugar Bowl or a USC that beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, then so be it. The two teams in the BCS Championship Game would absolutely have earned their spot.

The other three? They would be conference champions and champions of “their bowl”. Both of those things matter quite a lot - just ask the Pac-10 or Big Ten about how much “Rose Bowl Champions” means. Not making the BCS Championship Game - sure, that would suck. But the subjective nature of the current BCS would be reduced tremendously, and rational fans would realize their disappointment is outweighed by keeping all that is good about major college football intact.

New Year’s Day would be an amazing event, as would the BCS Championship Game. And the other bowls would stay as is - and people sure seem to enjoy most of those now.

This system would keep the regular season as is, preserve the significance of the bowls and add a “filter” to the selection of the two “best” teams. You would be selecting two teams from the five who won their conference championships and beat another conference champion in their bowl game instead of the 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 teams which have … some kind of subjective “good” qualities … and deserve a chance to prove that by tearing apart the best regular season in all of sports.

In the grand scheme of things, this would be only a minor adjustment to the game, and would create new excitement while taking 90% of the bad elements of the BCS off the table. I’d endorse it.

You pissed it away, son.

It’s impossible to know what’s going on in the head of Ryan Perrilloux, but suffice it to say - that kid ain’t right. Perrilloux finally reached the breaking point of Leslie’s “10 strikes and you’re out” rule on Friday and was un-invited to the LSU football program. Was it just the inevitable outcome for a kid so cocky he came into college talking about “four Heismans”? One has to think that cockiness is at the root of Perrilloux’s sense of invincibility - tied up in counterfeiting, getting onto gambling boats with a fake ID, getting in fights, being an asshole all around town, not going to team meetings, not going to class … hey, “I’m Ryan Perrilloux” - but his degree of delusion is just staggering.

There’s also the factor of his father’s death in February, and I think it’s quite possible that any chance he had of getting right was sunk with that. The kid wasn’t prepared to just do what’s asked of all football players, so toss in the death of a parent and it’s not surprising he flamed out.

So Plan B for Ryan Perrilloux is transferring down to a I-AA program to redeem himself. That will require that he finishes the Spring semester at LSU, though, and there’s still a week and a half to go. If he can’t keep himself straight with the promise of being the starting QB at LSU, he many have a hard time just not killing somebody between now and May 13.

The book is now closed on Ryan Perrilloux. Career stats:

- 52 for 79 (66% completion)
- 704 yards
- 8 TDs
- 2 INT

And now we move on. I wouldn’t have put money down on the idea that Perrilloux would actually play this fall, but it’s more than a little troubling to face the reality now. It didn’t help that I heard this news in Athens yesterday morning from a Gator fan. Maybe Nick Saban coming over to my house to tell me would have been a worse circumstance, but just barely.

Whether it’s Harvard Boy, Jarrett Lee or Jordan Jefferson behind center, “untested” is a huge understatement for LSU’s QB prospects this season. The Tigers have enjoyed an incredibly strong thread of quarterback progression since the emergence from our Dark Days, and you can’t overestimate the significance of that. Consider this history:

2001 - Rohan Davey takes over for the Booty Who Shall Not Be Mentioned, Matt Mauck (pressed into service in the SEC Championship Game because of Davey injury) as backup, Marcus Randall in the wings.

2002 - Matt Mauck takes over for Davey, Marcus Randall (pressed into service for the second half because of Mauck injury) as backup.

2003 - Matt Mauck is the second-year starter, Marcus Randall as backup. JaMarcus Russell, Matt Flynn redshirted. Lester Ricard, Rick Clausen flee the program for lack of opportunity.

2004 - Marcus Randall takes over for Mauck, JaMarcus Russell challenges for the starting job, Matt Flynn as No. 3 QB.

2005 - JaMarcus Russell takes over for Randall, Matt Flynn as backup (pressed into service for the Peach Bowl because of Russell injury). Ryan Perrilloux redshirted.

2006 - JaMarcus Russell as second-year starter, Matt Flynn as backup. Ryan Perrilloux as No. 3 QB.

2007 - Matt Flynn takes over for Russell, Ryan Perrilloux as backup (pressed into service twice because of Flynn injury). Transfer Andrew Hatch is No. 3 QB. Jarrett Lee redshirted.

That was some serious continuity and progression to develop quarterbacks. And *poof* - it’s gone now. I don’t remember who Perrilloux may have chased off in the 2005 signing class, but having the chain broken is a huge potential for program disruption. Davey, Mauck, Randall, Russell and Flynn all had time to develop, and only during the Randall era was there much pressure to rush a young guy into the role. And, of course, during this stretch LSU has claimed two national championships, three SEC championships, four SEC West titles and six bowl wins.

At this point, I’m assuming Lee will be the starting QB come August 30. Somehow the Andrew Hatch bio page doesn’t scream “this guy’s a starter”, and unless Jordan Jefferson is truly special, I’d think Leslie would go with the redshirt QB.

So the question becomes, is Lee a four-year QB like Tommy Hodson … or like Jamie Howard?

No, it wasn’t that Glenn Dorsey got himself far enough up into guaranteed-money territory to set himself up nicely even if Auburn’s hit-job on him last season keeps him from realizing his pro potential. It wasn’t Craig Steltz and his fabulous man-mane being matched so perfectly with the Chicago Bears.

It was this:

- Former Evangel superstar QB, USC signal caller and flag-bearer for the big Booty family John David Booty sat around until the 5th round (pick 137).

- Former Evangel work-a-day fullback and LSU football plow Jacob Hester goes in the 3rd round (pick 69).

Yes, I’m happy to see John David get the snub.

The LSU football team made their pilgrimage to the White House yesterday to get the obligatory pat on the back from the President. Good job by Steltz of getting his manly mane up front for the big photo op with George:

And we gave Bush a 7 jersey, not a 1 (like Texas) or a 43 (like Florida). We gave him a 1 after the 2003 season, so I guess the athletic department was looking for something else, but I’m not sure where 7 came from. Bush’s 7th year in office? Dunno.

In any case, the ceremony was nice, but an ugly scene sort of ruined the day:

Seriously, Tubbs. Time to call them off. Glenn’s having a hard enough time already.