Cap'n Ken's Homespun Wisdom

For Les Miles’ sake, I really hope there’s no drama in the LSU / Arkansas game Saturday night. No drama in the sense that Arkansas wins by 30 wouldn’t be a good thing, but a nice, uneventful last few minutes would be a good thing for the coach.

I really don’t know what I expect out of this game. I can’t say the Hogs are particularly impressive. Yes, they are No. 1 in the SEC in passing and total offense, but their big numbers are weighted heavily toward their least challenging games. They have broken past 500 yards in total offense three times this season, against Missouri State, Eastern Michigan and Troy. They have been held under 400 yards by Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss and Mississippi State. The closest Arkansas has come to an impressive win was probably their 33-16 win over 6-5 South Carolina.

So I don’t know that I fear the Arkansas offense – which pretty much means their passing offense. I’m surely not impressed with their defense (No. 95 nationally in total defense; No. 63 in scoring defense). The questions, then, are whether LSU’s defense can contain Arkansas’ offense and whether LSU’s offense can exploit the poor Arkansas defense.

And I think the Tigers can contain Arkansas’ pass game. But it’s not rational to project a big day on offense by LSU, which sits at No. 106 in total offense nationally and No. 76 in scoring offense. We’re down to one true running back – Stevan Ridley – who has any carries this season, and we could well have a coaching staff that thinks “run” first, second and third after getting in so much trouble calling passes last week. The logical thing to do against this Arkansas defense is to throw early and throw often (they are No. 108 in pass defense), so we’ll see if Miles and Crowton have the balls to run the game plan they (hopefully) know they need to run.

How will this play out? I have no idea. About the only thing that would surprise me is if Les Miles isn’t super-quick to call his timeouts. I’ll help Miles get over Ole Miss with a bit of a homer pick.

LSU 26 – 20

Elsewhere in the SEC:

No. 2 Alabama at Auburn. Pointless to analyze this particular rivalry game. A better shot for an upset in this one than in Florida / Florida State. Wouldn’t shock me, but I got no specific case to make for Auburn.

Bama 24 – 13

Florida State at No. 1 Florida. I don’t see how the Gators could come this far, be this close and then have a weak FSU take it all away in Tebow’s final game at home. Not a likely rivalry upset.

Gators 49 – 21

Georgia at No. 7 Georgia Tech. Hard to imagine the Dawgs can pull themselves together on the road against a strong Tech team the week after UGA lost at home to Kentucky. Georgia could have a shot in this one since their rush defense is fairly strong and all Tech has on offense is the run. If they hadn’t screwed the pooch against Kentucky, I might actually pick them here.

Jackets 31 – 27

No. 18 Clemson at South Carolina. The Cocks have lost four out of five, with their sole win coming over Vandy by four points. Clemson has won six straight, and apart from a regretful loss to Maryland only has a three-point loss to No. 7 Georgia Tech and a four-point loss to No. 4 TCU blemishing the record. Quite a nice season for Clemson; yet another one falling short for Spurrier and his chickens.

Clemson 35 – 24

No. 25 Ole Miss at Mississippi State. If Nutt were to drop this one after the roller-coaster year, I’d be mighty surprised. Ole Miss fights its way back into respectability.

Rebels 41 – 20

Tennessee at Kentucky. Well, well. Kentucky sits at 7-4; Tennessee at 6-5. Kiffin needs this one bad to finish out the season on a non-sour note. A .500 season wouldn’t look good after the promise the Vols have shown at times. I think the Vols have it together more than Georgia, which is probably the difference in this one.

Vols 27 – 26

In the frenzy of hideous uniforms and inexplicable coaching performances, I let last week’s tally get past me. I only missed Kentucky beating Georgia after picking Ole Miss to win – but not the way they did. For the week: 5-1; for the season: 75-12.

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Update: The LSU Nike uniforms in their full abominable glory.
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The super-marketeers of Nike are still waiting until Monday to officially unveil the abomination of a “Pro Combat” special uniform they’ll inflict upon Tiger fans who attend the Arkansas game next weekend, but they continue to drop clues in their source code.

The theme is, in fact, “cochon de lait”, which Nike explores thusly:

The Bayou Bengals are planning an old-fashioned pig roast, complete with an updated dress code inspired by the legendary LSU teams of the 1940s. Toggle through the views below to explore the innovation and heritage behind the new uniform. Then get the “Cochon de Lait” T-shirt in time for gameday.

OK, so we’re wearing this for the Arkansas game, and they are Hogs. Ha, ha – good one. Nike produces audio descriptions of the uniforms (and accompanying theme t-shirts – on sale soon!), and LSU’s is embedded below.

Biggest problem I have with their description is “it says winners get to wear gold, and they also get to wear white. And it says no one can hold them Tigers when they’re wearing this getup.”

Yeah, we already wear gold and white guys. And that’s “gold” as defined by LSU in the 1950s, not what some Nike designer in Oregon perceives as “gold”. We’ve done just fine without the help of your “getup”, Nike. Real winners would tell Nike to shove off when they talk about messing with a 50-year-old uniform design to promote the company’s new line of football gear.

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Update: Hat tip to And The Valley Shook for digging around in Football Fanatics and uncovering a t-shirt that shows the full design of this horrible helmet:



This really has me incensed. Nike is trying to play this off as a 1940s “tribute” (because of the different type of gold color), but uses the helmet logo that LSU adopted in 1977. What they are doing, in fact, is saying they like the shades of purple and gold used by Washington better than the shades LSU uses. And LSU let them do it. Absolutely inexcusable. My anger level is up 300% now.
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It’s hard to say whether the worst thing LSU is letting Nike to do our program is this helmet or this uniform that inverts LSU’s purple and gold stripes and reduces them to an almost-invisible element.

On the gold helmet, Nike says:

Gold helmet is a tribute to the storied LSU teams of the 1940s, and a nod to the “Golden Boot” which LSU battles for.

Let’s just back up a bit. Nike says the uniform is inspired by the “legendary LSU teams of the 1940s” and the gold helmet is a tribute to the “storied LSU teams of the 1940s”. Really?

If you’re not well-versed in LSU football history, this is what the 1940s looked like:

1940: 6-4; 3-3 in the SEC
1941: 4-4-2; 2-2-2 in the SEC
1942: 7-3; 3-2 in the SEC
1943: 6-3; 2-2 in the SEC
1944: 2-5-1; 2-3-1 in the SEC
1945: 7-2; 5-2 in the SEC
1946: 9-1-1; 5-1 in the SEC
1947: 5-3-1; 2-3-1 in the SEC
1948: 3-7; 1-5 in the SEC
1949: 8-3; 4-2 in the SEC

National titles – 0; SEC titles – 0; Bowl Games – 3; Bowl Game Wins – 1; Years finishing in the Top 20 – 3; Highest ranking – 8 (1946); All-Americans – 0; All-SEC picks – 8; Decade winning percentage – .600.

The only really notable year of the decade was 1946, with a team that featured Y.A. Tittle that ended the season with a 0-0 tie in the “ice bowl” Cotton Bowl game – against Arkansas. Maybe Nike could build their marketing gimmick around that, but they’re going with “legendary” and “storied” for LSU’s very forgettable decade of the 1940s.

If Nike wants “legendary” and “storied”, LSU has it. They could have gone with a “throwback” (a generous term for this uniform) to 1959 and rolled that out on Halloween for the 50th anniversary (to the day) of Billy Cannon’s punt return. Or a tribute to the 1958 National Championship team. Those seem like the obvious choices, especially given that the Ohio State “throwback” is to their 1954 National Championship and the Oklahoma “throwback” is to their 1955 National Championship. The 1958 & 1959 LSU teams would be in that mold, but I guess a “throwback” to our same-colored helmets with numbers on them isn’t enough of a change for Nike (their “throwbacks” of Ohio State and Oklahoma both mean the helmet color changes).

Likewise, a tribute to the Tigers of the 1960s (SEC championship, four Top-10 finishes, two Sugar Bowl; two Cotton Bowl and one Orange Bowl win; 10 All-Americans) wouldn’t be a radical enough shift for Nike. And if they wanted a cool “throwback”, the Bert Jones-era helmet logo was pretty sweet. But also on the same-color helmet we wear now. That wouldn’t pass Nike muster, I guess.

But the “throwback” notion is a joke anyway. And Nike doesn’t try to call it that – just a “tribute” or a “nod” in this “updated dress code”. Kind of an oxymoron, but we don’t need our “dress code” “updated” anyway.

So what else will be worked into LSU’s Nike commercial next Saturday? It says “Tigers” on the back of the pants and “Team” inside the jersey collar and on the gloves.

“Team” is a current LSU mantra, but it would be cooler if they put “Damn Strong” or “Have a Great Day” inside the collar – seriously, that would be cool.

The undergarments of this uniform do contain a pretty cool design element. It’s the face of a tiger with “LSU” above it:

Hey, where have I seen that before? Right – it’s the logo Nike took off of LSU’s helmets. Good enough for the underwear but not for our helmets? Put it back.

Then there is what I guess is the whole point of this – the t-shirt Nike wants you to buy.

Oh yeah, that’s awesome. Dude can wear that to a Nickelback show after the season is over.

So those are so more details. I expect full images of the uniforms to be findable before the official release, so I’ll put ‘em up when I get ‘em. Hat tip again to Friends of The Program for initially sniffing out this stuff.

What’s the difference between the 2008 LSU Tigers and the 2009 LSU Tigers? Georgia sucks this year.

Well, it’s not quite that simple, but after suffering through a very poor LSU patsy win last Saturday, this season is feeling a lot like 2008 – except that Georgia sucks. Last year, Georgia didn’t suck and LSU stood at 7-3 going into the final stretch against Ole Miss and Arkansas. And we suffered through a very poor LSU patsy win against Troy right before that.

But Georgia sucks, so LSU is 8-2 right now, not 7-3.

What’s really interesting is that ten games in, LSU isn’t much different defensively this year, giving up 311.8 yards per game compared to 311.1 yards per game ten games in to 2008. We’re 22 yards per game worse against the rush but 22 yards per game better against the pass. Minus the gifts of Jarrett Lee, however, LSU’s scoring defense is much improved at 13.7 points per game (compared to the pick six-aided 24.9 points per game of 2008).

Remember how the 2008 LSU defense was so horrible that Les Miles’ ridiculous “co-coordinator” experiment was ended and the high-profile John Chavis was brought in as the defensive savior? Kind of interesting that LSU’s defense hasn’t actually improved under Chavis this year but you don’t hear much grumbling.

I guess it’s hard to focus on the defense when your offense is this bad.

Last year at this time, LSU was averaging 394.2 yards per game. We are now averaging 310 per game, with rush yards down 44 and pass yards down 40 per game. Scoring has dropped off from 32.1 to 25 per game. And we’ve gone from allowing 1.2 sacks per game to allowing 2.7 sacks per game. And this, of course, with a “more experienced” quarterback, most of the skill guys back and the best offensive line Les Miles says he’s ever had.

Clearly there’s something wrong there. Some say Gary Crowton is over-complicating things; others say Jordan Jefferson just isn’t up to the task of leading an SEC offense. And others say the offensive line just lost too much this year (a theory I tend to agree with). But whatever the cause, it’s a glaring problem.

Which brings us to the No. 8 Tigers’ matchup with Ole Miss on Saturday. Last year, this game marked the beginning of the end for LSU’s season. The Tigers were still clinging to a No. 18 ranking with the prospect of finishing the season 9-3. It didn’t work out that way, of course.

Last year LSU managed a season-low 215 total yards against the Rebels and gave up 408 yards, which was behind only the totals given up to Florida (475) and Georgia (443) that season. And we lost, 31-13.

As I mentioned, LSU’s defense this year is about the same as it was last year; our offense is much worse. Ole Miss’ offense is about the same as last year (405 yards per game compared to 407 last year) as is their defense (313 yards allowed compared to 307 last year). The Rebels are coming off a 41-17 thrashing of a Tennessee defense that’s ranked right behind LSU, and they held the Vols to 112 fewer yards than their average production.

All of this, quite frankly, does not bode well. Even if LSU can contain McCluster and the Ole Miss offense, the Tigers will be throwing a gimpy offense (literally, with Jefferson, Dickson and Hebert semi-healthy at best and Scott out for the season) at a good Rebels defense that also happens to produce a lot of sacks (LSU gives up a lot of sacks even with a healthy quarterback and offensive line).

Ole Miss and LSU both have motivation in this game – the Tigers can finish in the top 10 with two wins to close out the year; the Rebels can reach nine wins by closing out strong. But I don’t see any advantage for LSU, especially on the road.

Rebels 31 – 9

Elsewhere in the SEC:

Kentucky at Georgia. A battle of two 6-4 teams (no, really), but these teams really aren’t comparable. Kentucky is a bad game by Auburn away from having one SEC win (over Vandy), and they’ve been generally pretty unimpressive. And while I say Georgia sucks, they are a much better team than Kentucky. Georgia needs this one bad. A win puts the Dawgs at 7-4 going in to a tough rivalry game against Georgia Tech; a loss leaves them scrambling for bowl eligibility – a term made for teams like Kentucky. I don’t see a ‘Cats win in Athens here.

Georgia 38 – 20

Mississippi State at Arkansas. The Bulldogs are staring at another 4-8 season if they don’t get past the Hogs. Arkansas still has a shot at 8-4. I don’t think MSU has the defense to slow down Mallett & Co. or the offense to fully exploit a weak Hogs defense.

Arkansas 45 – 31

Vanderbilt at Tennessee. Remember early in the season when LSU’s 23-9 win over Vandy was considered to be a great performance? Oh, right, the ‘Dores are 2-9 now and 0-7 in the conference. You have to figure Lane Kiffin and his daddy aren’t real happy with last week’s bad loss at Ole Miss. And Tennessee needs this one (and Kentucky next week) to reach 7-5 and claim bowl eligibility.

Vols 52 – 17

Patsies at No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Alabama.

Florida and Alabama