Instant Analysis - Nov. 28
LSU 33 ... Arkansas 30 OT
Pete
Fiutak
You got to love Les Miles.
Any other head coach and you’d think he was completely and totally full of spit when it comes to the spin control used with the “my team knows how to win” mantra, but Miles makes it work. How else can he explain how his team full of tremendous talents has looked so mediocre at times? But for all the problems and all the issues, LSU is 9-3, headed to a top New Year’s Day bowl game (almost certainly the Capital One), and it has a chance at another ten-win season. Who cares how it looks? Who cares if along the way the coaching staff forgot how to tell time against Ole Miss (and was crushed for it all week)? Who cares if the offense couldn’t do anything against Florida and couldn’t come up with the one big play needed to get by Alabama? Who cares if the Tigers needed a horrendous celebration call to get by a mediocre Georgia? His team knows how to win, and more importantly, it knows how to survive.
Miles might not be viewed as a master of Xs and Os, and he’s considered more of a recruiter and salesman than a great game coach, but the act might have everyone fooled
(he's far better than he gets credit for). The results continue to come, the adjustments continue to be made (notice how this week’s 1:14 minute drill actually worked), and his team really does know how to win.
On the flip side is Arkansas, who’s still learning how to close. A team that knows how to win would’ve come up with the win in Death Valley and would’ve upset Florida earlier in the year when the chance was there. But that comes with experience and results. Assuming Ryan Mallett stays for another year, both will be there next season. LSU, and the rest of the West, for that matter, have to know how to win
in different was, and will have to continue to
improve with an emerging star coming out of Fayetteville.
Richard
Cirminiello
If next week’s SEC championship game between Alabama and Florida is half as good as tonight’s overtime affair in Baton Rouge, Atlanta is in store for a real doozy.
What is it about Arkansas and LSU when they meet at the end of each November? It’s as if the drama and excitement is already built in before kickoff. This has quietly become one of the most entertaining post-Thanksgiving rivalries in the country. The Hogs and the Tigers were at it again for nearly four hours on Saturday night. Both teams authored gut-check drives at the end of regulation, Arkansas on the right arm of Ryan Mallett and the toughness of WR Joe Adams, and LSU behind QB Jordan Jefferson and the clutch kicking of Josh Jasper. The hitting was ferocious throughout, even when both sides were gassed in the waning moments. In an otherwise disappointing season for the SEC, this was the type of back-and-forth, crisply played game that the conference can stick to the refrigerator.
For Arkansas and Bobby Petrino, it winds up being a lost opportunity to take a gale force head of steam into the postseason. For LSU and Les Miles, the 33-30 victory comes with a gigantic sigh of relief. After last weekend’s last-second debacle at Ole Miss, Miles, in particular, could ill-afford a fourth conference loss and third in the last four games.
Matt Zemek
1) They were flawed, they were frail, and they sure messed up at Ole Miss, but after 12 games, the LSU Tigers own the third-best record in the SEC behind the two powerhouses from Gainesville and Tuscaloosa. Les Miles finally learned how to manage a game, Jordan Jefferson shrugged off mistakes, and a resilient bunch punched a ticket to the Capital One Bowl, the best non-BCS bowl available. Even if the Bayou Bengals had beaten Mississippi, they still would have been slated for “Beautiful Downtown Orlando” on Jan. 1. There are many teams that can and should be labeled “underachievers.” LSU isn’t one of them.
2) It’s remarkable how certain programs have consistent runs of success or failure with kickers, no matter who the coach is. Under Houston Nutt, Arkansas had the inconsistent Chris Balseiro. Now, under Bobby Petrino, there’s the erratic Alex Tejada. How different would the U of A’s season be if Tejada had managed to hit relatively easy kicks against Florida and tonight versus LSU? In an SEC with six 7-5 clubs, the Razorbacks could have been so much better. If only they could have borrowed a kicker from Utah, Georgia, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and other schools that regularly find premium placekicking power.