Alabama’s Trent Richardson is the best running back in college football. He’s consistently performed at a high level this year and was a Heisman finalist. With the BCS National Championship Game being a rematch of a regular season loss to LSU, don’t be surprised to see Richardson looking to get some revenge with LSU. I expect him to perform at his highest level on the biggest stage in college football and be the best player on the field.
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A joyous occasion turned awkward when prized prospect Landon Collins decided to head to Alabama, against his mother’s wishes.
The top safety in the nation had two choices presented to him: LSU and Alabama. You could also divvy those up as one school his mom loves and another she despises, respectively.
Collins chose to go with Alabama.
It was a moment that should have been met with poignant exuberance as a young man decides the biggest thing in his life. Instead, his mother met the moment with disdain, bringing a pall on what should have been such a happy moment.
Let’s first say that we have no idea what kind of relationship Collins and his mother have. I am hoping that they are extremely tight and they joke around.
Perhaps she already knew the decision and was lovingly chiding her son who was to play for the enemy. After all, no mother could root against her son, right?
That is about as far as I can go with the optimistic view of things. Here is a young man who is nervous and really just wants support, as he states at the end of the video.
Instead, his mother decides to battle cry LSU like a fan. Please, stop it. Coming from a man who loves sports, we have gone a little too mad over the stuff. Let me clue you in on a little secret: sports mean crap.
What matters is hard work, schooling and treating others correctly. So your son is going to the rival school, so what? Get an Alabama sweater and show some support. I am positive that is what happened behind the scene, because nobody could be that brainwashed by loyalty to a college over her own son’s decision.
I sincerely hope her disdain goes beyond the realm of football pride and has to deal with schooling and proximity to home. If not, my incessant head shaking has been proved valid.
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Not many coaches can claim to be more successful in the modern era of college football than LSU’s head coach Les Miles. He has a 75-17 record while in Baton Rouge and is 103-38 overall as a head coach.
He also has won a bowl game every year at LSU except 2009, when he lost by two. One of those bowls was the BCS National Championship.
Yet before this year, some fans wanted him gone as a coach. Why on earth would Tiger fans want a guy of his caliber gone?
His unconventional play-calling and clock management.
The “Mad Hatter” has developed a reputation of occasionally throwing in a trick play to catch teams off guard. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t, but calling plays like that can really polarize a fanbase, especially in the SEC.
The conference is largely old-school football with lots of bruising running backs, pro-style offenses and punishing defenses. Running trick plays can, in relative comparison, be viewed as an insult because it is so far in the other direction.
But the most important thing is that Miles hadn’t been good at clock management. The Tigers needed an absolute miracle in order to beat Tennessee in 2010. They committed four turnovers and completely botched a 3rd-and-goal from the one and time seemed to run out after a botched snap.
Then Tennessee prematurely celebrated and allowed LSU to run one more play, on which it scored and won the game, 16-14. The game caused quite a stir in the college football community and articles like this one titled “What’s worse than LSU’s clock management? Tennessee’s math” were written about the game.
Clock management is one of the most critical things coaches are in charge of and to mess it up so badly will make a lot of people angry.
This year, Miles has been great with play calls and clock management. Oh, and the Tigers are 13-0. No wonder the calls for his head have subsided in 2011.