Urban Meyer made quite a splash with a monster recruiting class at Ohio State, but some of his fellow coaches in the Big Ten weren’t too happy that he came in and “flipped” players. The whining from Bret Bielema and Mark Dantonio seemed a bit much according to David Whitley, who pointed out that recruits had every right to change their minds after a coach of Meyer’s caliber joined Ohio State.

But Whitley makes a larger point – that the Big Ten has much more honorable recruiting practices than the SEC. Yes, the SEC is currently winning all the titles, but Whitley points out some pretty pathetic actions by Les Miles and Nick Saban. The oversigning has gotten out of control.

Hopefully the push by the Big Ten towards 4-year scholarships will put even more pressure on the SEC to clean up its act.

LSU may have come into tonight’s game with Oregon missing its starting quarterback and wide receiver because of suspensions, but that didn’t matter. The LSU defense and special teams were more than enough in LSU’s 40-27 win.

It’s a real nice victory for LSU and the SEC (again). It’s a tough loss for Oregon, which is about to get the Ohio State label draped on it when it comes to big games. The Ducks, as it turns out, aren’t that difficult to defend if you have some time to prepare for them.

In their last three big-time nonconference games — Ohio State, Auburn and LSU — the Ducks offense hasn’t been anywhere near the explosive unit that it is during the season. People that are smarter than I am on Twitter claim it’s because what Oregon does is actually pretty simple, and when you have the athletes to match up with it, all you have to do is play assignment football.

That being said, shutting down Oregon is quite an accomplishment, and LSU’s defense won’t face many offenses that are more explosive. They’ll face different and more balanced offenses (Darron Thomas is woefully inadequate in the passing game), but not many that can do what the Ducks can.

It plays in the SEC West, so LSU has a hell of a lot of work to do in order to play for the title this year, but this was a huge hurdle, especially considering the suspensions. It was an even bigger hurdle for the SEC, which may have just guaranteed itself a spot in the title game again.

ESPN.com is reporting that LSU and head coach Les Miles have agreed in principle to a new contract that will run through the 2017 season.

LSU athletic director Joe Alleva says Miles’ annual pay of a little more than $3.75 million will remain the same.

Miles has won 62 games and five bowls, including a 2007 national title in his first six years with the Tigers. Alleva says the university wants to maintain stability at the top of a winning program.

Miles, who met with Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon Monday about the coaching vacancy the Wolverines had at the time, says Baton Rouge is home to his family now and that staying at LSU is “the right thing to do.”

I think it says something that Miles (presumably) had two opportunities over the past four years to leave Baton Rouge and coach at his alma mater and he chose to stay. He has shown loyalty to the LSU program and in turn, the Tigers have given it right back.

I still think the guy is bat sh*t crazy though. He obviously knows how to win but I wonder if he goes home sometimes and thinks to himself, “How the hell did I pull that one out of my ass?”

Only Miles could get called for a delay of game penalty on fourth-and-nine and then call a timeout. And only he could then get bailed out when his opponent (Tennessee) had 12 men on the field during the final play and therefore found a way to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat.

Oh, Les Miles.

Les Miles isn’t headed to Ann Arbor, which means Brady Hoke is.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that after meeting with Michigan officials about the Wolverines’ football vacancy on Monday, Miles will stay at LSU. The former UM graduate is 62-17 with the Tigers, which includes five bowl victories and one national title in his previous six seasons. Following Miles’ decision, Michigan moved quickly to hire Hoke.

When Rich Rodriguez was fired last week, two names emerged as leading candidates to replace him: Stanford’s Jim Harbaugh and San Diego State’s Hoke. And once Harbaugh agreed to terms with the 49ers, Hoke become the clear favorite to land in Ann Arbor.

It would have taken a truckload of money to get Miles to come to Michigan and in the end, it would have been a riskier move than what AD David Brandon wanted to make following the Rich-Rod debacle. Hoke is the safer choice and he may be the better long-term fit for the program, too. He has ties to the team, he’s an up-and-comer and he’s cheap. It just makes sense following what happened with Rodriguez.

Is Hoke the right fit? We’ll see. He certainly isn’t a big name but the Wolverines got a big name in Rodriguez and look how that turned out. I know some UM fans would have rather seen Rodriguez retained for another year than hire Hoke. But at least he’ll put the emphasis back on defense after Rich-Rod completely ignored that side of the ball for three years. (Maybe Hoke will actually recruit a kicker that knows that the ball is supposed to go between the uprights and not to either side of them, too.)

Hoke may be a ho-hum hire in some people’s minds, but maybe that’s exactly what UM needs right now.

According to ESPN.com, LSU’s Les Miles “anticipates” meeting with Michigan representatives to discuss the Wolverines’ head coaching vacancy.

Miles says no one from Michigan has contacted him directly yet and that he does not know when such a meeting with his alma mater might take place. According to the Detroit News, Miles and Michigan are expected to meet on Tuesday.

Miles says he cannot speculate about the substance of such a meeting and also says he is “extremely happy” at LSU and that his family is comfortable living in Baton Rouge.

Boy, Michigan fans have to be torn on this one. On one hand, Miles isn’t Brady Hoke, who could be one of the favorites to replace Rich Rodriguez. Hoke has done a nice job at San Diego State, but he doesn’t exactly rock UM fans’ boat.

On the other hand, Miles is freaking nuts. I swear he uses one of those origami fortunetellers that girls used to make in grade school to make decisions during games (especially in the fourth quarter). He may win, but it’s only by the stroke of God that he’s able to get away with some of the things he does during games.

It’ll also cost a small fortunate to convince him to leave Baton Rouge. He makes roughly $3.7 million a year at LSU and if Michigan AD David Brandon isn’t prepared to fork over that kind of money with what happened with Rodriguez, then he’ll have to “settle” for someone like Hoke instead.

That said, Miles is a true “Michigan Man” in every sense of the word. He knows that he can’t go winless against Ohio State or lose to Michigan State (ever). He gets what Michigan is about and in the end, that might be worth it to someone like Brandon, who obviously needs to hit a home run with his next hire.

My wife essentially makes the schedule in our house. My job is to make sure I stay gainfully employed and just show up to the things she’s set up for us. It’s normally pretty easy and painless, to be honest. And since I’m a scatter-brain most of the time, I completely relinquish the scheduling.

But she messed up this weekend. Big time. We’re signed up for a wine tasting at 6 p.m. (EDT) today, which will be smack dab in the middle of some of the best college football finishes of the day. It also means I’ll be out of commission after 6 p.m. (never drink and blog kids, it never ends up well), so expect heavier blogging early in the day, and not much later. I’ll let you decide if that’s good or bad.

After the jump, I’ll dissect some of the great matchups of the day (there a couple of huge ones), and introduce a couple of new features for this morning forecast post. Read the rest of this entry »

College football season continues to be awesome. It seems like every week I sit down to write my picks (which also continue to be awesome) there are a handful of games that are can’t miss.

I don’t know if that’s because there’s an increasing number of good teams in college football, or if all the cupcakes teams were feasting on at the beginning of the season beefed up their records artificially. Either way, I like being excited on a Friday night for what I’m about to see the next day, and I’ve been like that for a few weeks now.

This week is no different, in fact, it’s about as big as any weekend of the season. And maybe that’s artificially inflated for myself living in Michigan and seeing about 50% of my Facebook “friends” switch their profile picture to something Michigan or Michigan State related. It’s half exciting and half terribly annoying (example: New friend request from John Doe. Hmm, John Doe doesn’t ring a bell, I wonder what he looks like. Oh, he looks just like Denard Robinson. Strange. Ignore. (Not true, I never ignore. My ego can use all the friends it can get, virtual or not.)).

Enough parentheses, let’s get to the games. Read the rest of this entry »

Only Les Miles could get called for delay of game on a fourth-and-nine, then call a timeout.

And only Les Miles could get bailed out by the other team having 12 men on the field on the final play.

LSU survived at home against a pitiful Tennessee team today, remaining one of the more unimpressive undefeated teams in the country. The Tigers won 16-14 and scored from a yard out as time expired after a Tennessee penalty gave them second life.

Had LSU lost this game, I’m assuming the LSU faithful would have forcibly removed Miles from his position. I understand that winning in the SEC is a tough thing to do each week. And I understand that a lot of teams get lucky in their wins. But Les Miles is setting records for luck and incompetence all at the same time. Yet he still has a job and still is pulling in good recruiting classes.

LSU has four losses left on its schedule, but will 8-4 be enough to get rid of Miles? Or even worse, if he lucks his way into a couple of wins against Florida, Auburn, Alabama or Arkansas, do they extend his contract? He might be the only many lucky enough to fall into that situation.

There have been rumblings in Louisiana that Les Miles has worn out his welcome as coach at LSU. Some have written this off as ridiculous — “He won a national title in 2007!” — but Saturday night was a harsh reminder of why the LSU faithful have lost a lot of, um, faith, in Miles.

The Tigers survived Saturday night in a 30-24 win against half of North Carolina’s team. And it really wasn’t even the good half. Worse still is that LSU very nearly blew a 30-10 lead in the fourth quarter to do it.

Give a lot of credit to the North Carolina players who know the NCAA rules. They played with a lot of heart down the stretch and were two dropped passes and a probably-missed pass interference call away from winning a game nobody gave them a chance in.

But the story here is Miles and the Tigers nearly blowing the game. The Tigers failed to put the game away, and star defensive back Patrick Peterson’s postgame quote said a ton. When asked why he wasn’t on the field for a 97-yard touchdown pass that gave North Carolina life, Peterson responded, “I guess he thought we had a comfortable lead.”

The “he” in that sentence is defensive backs coach Ron Cooper, but how does that decision not go through Miles? If it doesn’t, it should. The head coach doesn’t need to micro-manage his assistants, but he does need to make sure his best players are on the field while the game is still in any kind of doubt. Miles needs to at the very least contend for an SEC title this year, or it could be his last.

Now some other thoughts on the first Saturday of college football. Read the rest of this entry »