Yesterday I griped a little about some of the Bama commentary in the aftermath of the game. Pete Holiday at the AOL Fanhouse has a more rational take on things from the Bama fan standpoint. And meanwhile, Todd from Roll Bama Roll came by to clarify his thoughts in ranking LSU 4th in the SEC Power Poll this week. As I noted yesterday, I'm not arguing Miles is the better coach, or was on Saturday. I just think that Saban didn't do anything extraordinary to keep Bama in that game. LSU made a lot of mistakes, which certainly reflects poorly on its coaching staff, but on the whole, I think Saban's pulled off a lot more impressive performances coaching individual games. From the Bama standpoint, I suppose it is a welcome change indeed to see the Tide stick around and play ball for 60 full minutes; I have no doubt that's entirely to Saban's credit.
Just a reminder to the college football world: the KEY to our offense moving the chains is a healthy Early Doucet. We missed him from the Virginia Tech game all the way through Kentucky week, when he was in for one meaningless play at the end. Now that he's back, our offense's play has been MUCH improved. We moved the ball against a very good Auburn defense, and rolled up 41 on the Tide, not a shoddy performance by any stretch.
Last week, we didn't have Ryan Perrilloux available to come in and spell Matt Flynn, critical when Flynn started to crumble in the 2nd quarter (though he deserves massive praise for gutting it out and coming up with that clutch 4th quarter drive).
From here on out, we have a healthy Doucet, and assuming Perrilloux keeps his butt out of trouble (a stretch, I know), we ought to be playing with a fully loaded arsenal. That'll be the true test of how good this LSU Tigers team is.
Once again, how many coaches out there would have benched a completely healthy guy like Ryan Perrilloux for such an important game, knowing full well both remaining backups are COMPLETELY untested, and risking the ire of his entire fanbase? Urban Meyer sure as hell didn't last year with Marcus Thomas and this year with Tony Joiner.
Somebody outside of Baton Rouge ought to give Les Miles some DAMN high marks for that. We wait with bated breath.
Darry Beckwith is going to miss the La Tech game after having arthroscopic surgery on his knee. Yikes. Even more yikes is the ever-articulate Coach Miles:
Misquote, maybe? Ahh, right, that's just traditional Les messing with the press (like my rhymes? I've got skills!) regarding injuries, yet again.
After Chad Jones' sack of John Parker Wilson which resulted in our recovering a fumble inside the Bama 5, a friend emailed me to say "Thanks Astros!" (i.e. for not signing Jones, after drafting him, enabling him to stay at LSU). Indeed. Now we get to read more about the guy, and it's abundantly clear this guy is the frontrunner for Next Big Thing on the LSU defense. That'll do, true frosh. That'll do.