Louisiana State

One of my favorite things on the Internet is a post on a webpage called "And the Valley Shook" called The SEC as Muppets.  This post was done by an LSU fan, and he decided that LSU was best represented by . . . Animal:

LSU is Animal. This is actually an easy one. We're completely unhinged, barely clinging to reality. Always ready to party, we are a destructive force on the SEC, though really, we're quite harmless (the fans, not the team). I also think it would probably be best for everyone concerned if we were kept on a chain lest we attack Rita Moreno.

That's about as good a description of the LSU football program as you can find anywhere.  Of the states in the deep South, Louisiana is the only one that features a single big-time football program.  (Tulane is no Georgia Tech.)  And this means that whoever coaches LSU has almost uncontested access to one of the richest talent bases in America.  Any team that features the best high school players in Louisiana should be very formidable indeed.

And LSU is usually formidable.  But fortunately for the rest of the country, LSU has a tendency to hire eccentric coaches.  Les Miles -- who was actually one of the greatest LSU coaches -- would often lose one or two games a year because he wouldn't manage the clock correctly, or because his team would suffer odd mental lapses.  Over time, this sort of thing drove the LSU fans crazy -- or even crazier than usual -- and earlier this season they finally dispatched with Les Miles's services, despite his 2007 National Championship and his lifetime record of 114-34.

But LSU's coaches aren't the only ones prone to eccentricity.  Since hiring Nick Saban at the beginning of the 2000 season, LSU has gone 162-50, with four conference titles and two national titles.  Contrary to expectations in Baton Rouge, the Tigers are not usually this good.  For example, from 1984 to 1999, LSU used four different coaches to go 101-78-4, with two conference titles and no national title.  From 1962 to 1979, Charley McClendon went 137-59-7, with one conference title and no national titles.  So the last 16 years have been a Golden Age for Tiger football, and one wonders whether LSU fans appreciate that fact.

For now, the Tigers are happy to be coached by Ed Orgeron, who has been the interim coach since Miles was let go after losing to Auburn.  Orgeron was head man at Ole Miss from 2005 to 2007, and went 10-25 (and 3-21 against SEC opponents) -- one of the worst records seen at that proud old institution.  But Orgeron is a Cajun (he's from Larose, Louisiana, one of the last towns you reach on your Southern travels before you run into the Gulf of Mexico), and he's not Les Miles, and he's 3-0 so far -- so LSU fans are excited.

LSU won undisputed national titles in 1958 and 2007, and split the national title with Southern Cal in 2003.  The Tigers' all-time record in UCFC play is 11-9-1.  The Tigers last held the crown in 2007, taking it with a 30-24 win over Auburn on October 20, and keeping it until November 23, 2007, when Arkansas upset them 50-48.  Since then, they've had one more shot at the title, but they lost 13-3 to Florida on October 10, 2009.