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| Scooter Hobbs Archive |
| 2/5 | Column: How I Almost Missed The Super Bowl |
| | Surely, it’s big news in the northeast corridor, but I’m hearing less local buzz about today’s Super Bowl game than any in recent memory. Maybe two years ago, with the Saints, forever spoiled this area. And it doesn’t seem like that long ago when ... well, it was one of the longest days of my life, is all it was, and almost one of the worst. You know the tale of the Saints over the Colts, the on-sides kick, Tracy Porter’s interception, Drew Brees with the ultimate father-son photo-op. But this, my friends, is the story of how I almost missed the biggest game in Saints’ history and the chance to write the one post-game column that I never thought would see honest newsprint. Continue... |
| 2/3 | Column: Tigers Need Better Border Control |
| | BATON ROUGE — Back in December just before the SEC championship game, when things were cruising along so well for LSU football, Georgia coach Mark Richt was asked if his coaches recruited Louisiana much. Richt said that, while Louisiana was notoriously talent-rich, it was basically a waste of time and energy to send a coach across the border. “You’re not going to have much luck going to Louisiana,” he said, later adding. “If that kid grew up in Louisiana and he’s a great one, it’s going to be very difficult.” In other words, LSU had the place in lock-down mode. Evidently Nick Saban didn’t get the memo at Alabama. Nor did Derek Dooley at Tennessee. Certainly not Mack Brown at Texas. Continue... |
| 2/2 | Miles Says LSU Filled Its Needs |
| | BATON ROUGE — Call it a comeback that kind of fizzled out at the end. LSU, which had improved itself in the recruiting wars’ final days, got another boost early on Wednesday’s national signing day when they landed one of the nation’s top linebackers in Kwon Alexander of Oxford, Ala. But soon after Alexander chose the Tigers over Auburn and Alabama, the Tigers lost one of their top in-state commitments when Shreveport Woodlawn linebacker Torshiro Davis changed his mind and signed with Texas. Davis had been committed to LSU since last year’s national signing day. The rest of the day didn’t get much better as two other uncommitted players LSU had high hopes of landing — junior college wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson and Oxford, Ala., safety Trae Elston — signed with other SEC schools. Continue... |
| 2/1 | Column: Thankfully, It All Ends Today |
| | Just take a deep breath. It’s only one day. It will be over soon. You probably want to stay off the roads except for dire emergencies, just to be on the safe side, but with patience and understanding you can get through it. Yes, today is National Signing Day. I know. The whole thing gives me the heemie-jeemies, too. Those recruiting junkies are out there all year, but mostly out of sight, appearing occasionally under some clever Internet pseudonym. They spend most of the year down in the basement hunched over computers, rarely seeing daylight while scanning web sites and recruiting “services,” trying to crack the code and get that one nugget of information that will give them that edge the next time they log on to the message board. Failing that, they’ll just make something up and let if fly. Continue... |
| 1/31 | Reports: Miles To Hire Raiders Assistant To Coach Wide Receivers |
| | Former McNeese State player and coach Adam Henry is coming back to Louisiana, but not with the Cowboys. Henry, now the tight ends coach with the NFL Oakland Raiders, will be joining Les Miles staff at LSU. Miles traditionally does not fill coaching vacancies — or announce them, at least — until after the national signing day for recruiting, which is Wednesday. But Henry presumably will replace Billy Gonzales as LSU’s wide receivers coach. Gonzales left the LSU staff shortly after the BCS title game to take the offensive coordinator’s position at Illinois. That is the only opening Miles had to fill from last year’s staff. A source close to the LSU program told the American Press Monday night that the official announcement will come Friday. Continue... |
| 1/27 | Column: Are They Just Teasing Jarrett Lee Again? |
| | As I’m sure you’re aware of by now, LSU would have beaten Alabama and won that national championship if only Jarrett Lee had taken a shot or two at quarterback. Or, at any rate, the Tigers surely would have scored. Probably, anyway. The message boards all agree, most of the social media, too, and the mainstream media is quickly coming around. The more it turns out that Lee didn’t play in that game, the taller his legend grows, bolstered by three touchdown passes in a pair of all star games. It took fired Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt to get Lee into the first all star game. Perhaps Nutt, who coached Lee’s team in some kind of casino-sponsored Stars & Stripes Bowl, was so impressed by the way Lee didn’t play in LSU’s 52-3 victory over his Rebels this year, he couldn’t wait to see him in actual action. Continue... |
| 1/20 | Column: LSU May Have Helped Create The Plus-One |
| | Look on the bright side, LSU fans. As disheartening as the loss to Alabama was, at least the Tigers might have been part of the final piece of the puzzle toward moving college football into the 21st Century. If the rest of college football was already getting sick of the Southeastern Conference’s dominance, taking the last bit of suspense out of the way early for the league getting its sixth straight national championship crystal might have been the final straw. Having two of his own, LSU and Alabama, in the title game wasn’t the only reason SEC Commissioner Mike Slive was smiling all week leading up to the inevitable six pack. Slive has for at least four years now been publicly beating the drums for the so-called “plus-one,” which is sly way of saying “four-team playoff” without the indelicacy of actually saying the scary “playoff” word. Continue... |
| 1/18 | Column: This Too, Apparently, Shall Pass |
| | BATON ROUGE — Driving up to the LSU campus Tuesday afternoon, I was little surprised to find the Ol’ War Skul pretty much intact. Maybe I’ve been on the Internet too much in the last week, or broke a golden rule and put too much (which is to say, any) stock in it. But, frankly, I was expecting to find a smoldering ruin where the stately oaks used to stand, little but pot craters and charcoal left of a once-proud Flagship University. Where were the stragglers, the tattered survivors who envied the dead crawling desperately away from the disaster zone? After all, the football team screwed up royally. Yet it looked like normal college kids frolicking to and fro, probably skipping class pretty much like they always do and making plans to avoid the night’s basketball game. Continue... |
| 1/18 | Miles Addresses Media, Admits Mistakes |
| | BATON ROUGE — Speaking for the first time since immediately after LSU’s disastrous performance in the BCS national championship game, head coach Les Miles said he takes the blame for the coaching staff, but prefers to move on and look ahead to another promising season. “The coaching staff takes every discredit for our play on that night,” Miles said. He said that by most measures, a 13-1 season, 11 weeks as the No. 1 team in the country with a division and SEC title would be a success. “Except me,” Miles said. “I want to win that last game.” Miles addressed a number of issues that have arisen since the Tide prevailed 21-0 in New Orleans. Continue... |
| 1/12 | Hebert Not Backing Off Criticism Of Miles |
| | Les Miles may be tangling with the wrong angry Cajun. But give Bobby Hebert credit for consistency. Even with two days to clear his head following a well publicized, post-game run-in with the LSU head coach, the former Saints’ quarterback was sticking by his rant and eventual question. Hebert, whose son T-Bob was one of the more quoted players on the LSU team, went after Miles with the first question at the press conference following the Tigers 21-0 loss to Alabama Monday. It turned into more of a tirade about Miles’ handling of the game until the moderator cut Hebert off to ask if he had a question. Continue... |
| 1/11 | Column: LSU Will Live To Fight The Tide Again |
| | NEW ORLEANS — This startling development just in: In a rare move, LSU head coach Les Miles has petitioned the NCAA to get a fifth year of eligibility for quarterback Jordan Jefferson. Miles said it was because Jefferson had better feet. But Miles also insisted that he considered begging for a sixth year for Jarrett Lee but, gosh darn, the timing just never seemed right and it’s not to say he won’t try again next week and ... Nah, just kidding. Wanted to see if you were paying attention. Sorry to frighten you like that on an already trying day. The Miles-Jefferson-Lee affair, one of the longest-running, rockiest-road love triangles in college football history, has finally run its course. The only thing left is the syrupy cheap movie for the cable Lifetime Channel. And that’s all I’m going to say about that — forever. I’m getting on with the rest of my life, and I’d suggest it’s high time you do too. Except one more thing. Continue... |
| 1/11 | Column: For Better Or Worse, At Least It Will Be Different |
| | NEW ORLEANS --— Well, look at it this way. LSU can still claim, I guess, that it had the better overall season. It’s not much consolation at this point, maybe even grasping at straws the way two months ago Alabama was huffing and puffing about the Tide being the actual better team even though LSU pulled a few strings and won the game. It turns out the Tide was right. You can argue whether Bama deserved to be here, you can throw LSU’s season’s body of work in the Tide’s face and you can point to LSU’s 13 victories against 12 for the Alabama, both nestled against one loss. Nobody is going to make the Tigers give back the SEC championship trophy. Alabama still didn’t win that one. But even the most die-hard LSU partisan couldn’t watch the carnage on the Superdome floor Monday night without admitting that Alabama looked like the better team. Continue... |
| 1/9 | Column: Tigers Will Worry About History Later |
| | NEW ORLEANS — Honest, this really happened this week. One question to LSU’s Les Miles was about whether or not he felt his Tigers were getting the due respect they deserved nationally. A little curious. But the very next question put to Miles was about whether his Tigers, if they could beat Alabama tonight for the national championship, will go down as one of the greatest teams ever in the long and varied history of college football. Quite a leap there in the span of a few seconds. The answer probably is somewhere in between. Continue... |
| 1/9 | LSU Notes: First Things First |
| | NEW ORLEANS — When Nick Saban won the 2003 BCS National Champiionship at LSU, he famously celebrated by worrying about how he’d do it again the next year. This year Saban, now at Alabama, and LSU’s Les Miles aren’t even getting the luxury of playing the game first. Both were asked Sunday if they expected to be back in the championship game next year. “A year from now is just so far away,” said Miles, who won his LSU national championship following the 2007 season. “I do appreciate the question, it’s very valid. I’m really more concerned about the next 32 hours.” “I haven’t even thought about that,” Saban said. “Let’s just focus on what we need to do right now. Each and every year you have a new team. Continue... |
| 1/9 | Quarterback Saga Continues To The End |
| | NEW ORLEANS — It’s perhaps the longest-running saga in LSU football history. But one last time Sunday, LSU coach Les Miles was asked about the Jordan Jefferson-Jarrett Lee situation at quarterback going into tonight’s BCS championship game against Alabama. He’s sticking with his story. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see ol’ Jarrett Lee in the game early and make significant plays,” Miles said. That would be an upset. Lee, who started LSU’s first nine games — including the first four while Jefferson was suspended — got a lot of the credit for the Tigers early season success. But his playing time has been next to nothing since tossing two interceptions in the first half of the Tigers’ 9-6 victory over Alabama in early November. Continue... |
| 1/8 | Tigers Turned August Distractions Into Postive |
| | NEW ORLEANS — If this LSU football team has a calling card, it’s that you need not worry about these Tigers showing up excited and frothing-at-the-mouth ready to play. They’ll be there. No matter the opponent. No matter the stakes. Even when dealing with a distraction that could split many teams apart at the seams. Maybe, in fact, especially when dealing with the well-publicized mass curfew break just two weeks before a season with such high expectations was set to begin. “Resilient,” LSU offensive coordinator Greg Studrawa said when asked to define the Tigers’ personality. “Nothing flusters them.” Continue... |
| 1/8 | A Brief, Who-Dat Respite Leading Up To Bama |
| | NEW ORLEANS — We interrupt this Bowl Championship Series Championship party for ... Another party, it turns out, of a different flavor. This is New Orleans, after all, the French Quarter in particular. So it was like the BCS championship festival made a sudden wardrobe change for the day. Either that, or Alabama fans are suddenly out-numbering LSU fans about 3-1. Of course, Saints jerseys and (in some cases) fishnet stockings are clobbering both of them. You suppose many LSU and Saints fans are one in the same, maybe even the one of indeterminate gender that just strolled past Finnegan’s Bar, twirling a black and gold feather boa and wearing fleur des lis underpants on the outside of some sort of very clingy gold legwear stretching bravely atop heels almost as tall as Jimmy Graham. Continue... |
| 1/7 | Special Teams Give LSU edge |
| | NEW ORLEANS — You’ve heard the one about Alabama’s dual placekickers, of course. Haven’t made it to New Orleans yet. Fell short. Or maybe they veered left into Lake Ponchatrain. Or both, if they haven’t improved since the first LSU game. And there’s the Internet fun and games — most notably a picture of the Superdome’s end zone photo-doctored to where the goal posts stretch all the way across the end zone, from sideline to sideline. Yuck-yuck stuff. But the truth is that, while the debate rages over the two most physical defenses in the country and two seemingly evenly matched no-frill offenses, virtually everyone gives LSU a big advantage in special teams for Monday night’s rematch for the BCS Championship game. Continue... |
| 1/7 | Column: Different Approach, Same Results For Miles, Saban |
| | NEW ORLEANS — When last we saw Les Miles and Nick Saban together, they were seated side by side, amicably chatting each other up at the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York. Looked like a couple of long lost old Army buddies, they did. It was quite a TV shot. But that just can’t be right, can it? Somebody at the Downtown Athletic Club evidently had a sense of humor to go with a flair for the dramatic. To be truthful, that night it did appear that Miles was chuckling naturally and having himself a genuine grand old time while Saban managed to muster up an occasional passable smile as if he’d read from his day planner that it was time to summon one up on cue. But that is the way the two of them are 24/7. It had nothing to do with the company of each other. Continue... |
| 1/7 | LSU Notes: Saban's Wife Still Loves Louisiana |
| | NEW ORLEANS — It’s no secret Alabama head coach Nick Saban still has plenty of friends in Louisiana from his days as LSU’s coach. Unfortunately, so does his wife, Terry, who apparently arrived in the Crescent City armed with an array of credit cards. “I have more to worry about than just the game,” Saban said Friday. “When we arrived here, Terry had two of her old sidekicks from Baton Rouge that she used to shop with meet her at the bus and she never even came up to the hotel room. “She loves to shop here. We’ve been here when we haven’t been able to get all the stuff in the plane to go home. “But if that makes her happy ... I’m happy.” Continue... |
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