Scooter Hobbs covers LSU football, basketball, and baseball. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2547 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2546 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2545 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2544 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2543 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2542 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2541 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2540 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2539 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. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=2538