The SEC West is gettin’ downright incestuous.

Weird thought of the morning: if in fact these Tuberville to Arkansas rumors turn out to be true, the current group of head coaches in the SEC West will have been head coaches at four other schools in the division, as Tuberville’s pulled the trick at two other stops in the West.

No wonder all these folks hate each other.

Which means that if Les Miles leaves for Michigan next week, LSU only has one choice for his replacement. You guessed it:

Sylvester Croom, living the dream…

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UPDATE: Sunday Morning Quarterback’s take on the coach rumor mongering is great. An Envy & Jealousy moment here:

Ongoing joke of the day on Southern Miss boards: if you can dream it, there’s a South Carolina TV station that can confirm it. Probably an Arkansas TV station, too.

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UPDATE #3: Reporterspeak for “I don’t have a frickin’ clue”: Reliable but conflicting sources…

 

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Oxen gored, Pete Carroll does a 180.

Well, well, well… amazing what a loss to Stanford does to a soul. After playing in all those BCS title games of recent vintage where never was heard a discouraging word, Pete Carroll has suddenly gotten playoff religion:

It looks to me like the BCS system is one that, at the end of the process, designates the team that had the most attractive season based on who they played and what their record is at the end and all of those things that you add up. In my opinion it does not have anything to say about who the best team is at the end of the year, meaning that, who would be the team that would win if you had a playoff, and who’s playing the best football?

I’m not saying that’s us. But there are teams out there – and we’re one of them – that could arguably be able to beat any team in America when the time comes…We’re playing the game to see how far we go and how far we can take it.
[…]
The only way you get it perfect is to play ’em off…

Evidently this just dawned on him one day. I’m sure USC’s having no crack at the BCS title game the last two seasons has had nothing to do with this revelation.

I will say this, though. If you read that first paragraph of his comments carefully, it does frame the BCS/playoff debate nicely. Do we care about what the teams accomplish over the course of an entire season, or do we just care about seeing who gets hot in a playoff? Because those are radically different matters. And that’s really what the debate ought to be about.

So, let’s talk a little SECCG…

Amidst all this BCS talk and coaching comings and goings you could almost overlook the fact that LSU and Tennessee are about to square off to determine the Southeastern Conference championship Sattidy night.

On paper, this one doesn’t look particularly close. The SEC tracks thirty-one different sets of team statistics; LSU leads UT in 20 of them. Even more ominously, in defensive team stats, LSU is ahead of UT in nine out of ten categories (weirdly, LSU is last in the conference in red zone defensive percentage).

Also, take a look at what Matt at Statistically Speaking has to say about Tennessee’s season and its chances tomorrow.

These are the point totals the Vol defense has allowed away from K’Ville this year: 45, 59, 21, 41 and 50. (The 21 was by Mississippi State and its 93rd nationally ranked scoring offense.) That’s more than 43 points per game on the road.

Now LSU has given up its fair share of points over its last seven games, including 43 to Kentucky and 50 to Arkansas in two triple overtime battles (oops! Sorry, Mr. Feinstein…), but in spite of that still finds itself ranked 22nd nationally in scoring defense, at just over 20 points per game.

More on point, LSU has not failed to score less than 28 points in any game it’s played all season.

Add to the mix that both teams are coming off of multiple overtime games from last week and the whole thing screams “SHOOTOUT!”.

So the big question to me is whether Tennessee can keep up with LSU on the scoreboard. Honestly, I’m not sure it can. Though he’s been overshadowed by Tebow and Woodson, Ainge has had a terrific year. He’s really been the glue that’s held UT together to this point, but I don’t think he’ll be able to do it by himself.

I don’t see the Vol defense being able to do enough to let Ainge match what the LSU QBs will do. Word is that Flynn is still a bit gimpy, so I expect we will see a good bit of Perrilloux and I don’t think UT will have a solid answer for him on defense. The Tennessee defense doesn’t do running quarterbacks real well.

The intangibles are strange, of course, with Miles and Pelini considering head coaching positions elsewhere while preparing for this game. In the end, that probably won’t make much of a difference. By the time the game starts, the ACCCG will be close to over, and if Virginia Tech beats Boston College as expected, that will snuff whatever faint hopes the Tigers have of jumping back into the MNC race. LSU under Miles tends to play quite well when the pressure’s off.

What I expect is that LSU wins by ten or so, say 41-31.

What I’d like is another LSU loss in overtime, just so I could hear Les Miles explain what three overtime losses are equal to – you know, like if a tie is like kissing your sister, maybe three OT losses are like kissing your aunt.  The one with the mustache…

I hate it when this happens.

A Terence Moore column that I agree with.

Even worse, Joe Hamilton makes sense.

… What happens with all that money generated by this system?

“Is it one team take all? Do you spread the wealth around? How do you divide it up in your conference or to teams who never have a chance at making the playoffs?” Hamilton said. “There are so many discussion questions that won’t come up in just a general committee meeting. On the outside, this looks like a great idea. But when you sit down and think about it, it might not be able to get any better than this.”

It can’t. The BCS can use some tweaking every year, but that’s about it. And, yes, we know about the loudest of the knee-jerk comments from those wanting a playoff system at the highest level of college football: They’ve had a playoff system at those other levels for decades.

Hamilton laughed, saying, “How many times do you see a Division II or Division III team mentioned on SportsCenter? The revenue is just not the same. The pressure is not the same. The fan-base scrutiny is not the same. You really can’t compare those two things at all.”