He can talk for Miles

A lot was made of LSU coach Les Miles’s comments in front of a booster group in New Orleans in late June at yesterday’s Pac-10 Football Media Day. According to a July 1 report by Carl DuBois in the Baton Rouge Advocate, Miles said:

"I can tell you that I would like nothing better than to play USC for the title.

"I can tell you this, they have a much easier road to travel. They’re going to play real knockdown drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkeley and Stanford - some real juggernauts - and they’re going to end up, it would be my guess, in some position so if they win a game or two, that they’ll end up in the title [game]. I would like that path for us.

"I think the SEC provides much stiffer competition."

It’s nice for Miles to stick up for his conference, but he should at least disclose that he doesn’t know much about what he’s talking about. As a head coach at Oklahoma State (2001-04) and at LSU (2005-06), he’s played a grand total of four games against Pac-10 teams. His OSU teams were 1-1 against UCLA and his LSU teams beat Arizona State with a miracle fourth-quarter comeback in 2005, 35-31, and then crushed Arizona, 45-3 last season.

Going back to his days as an assistant coach, Miles’s teams had a good but not great record of 13-8 against Pac-10 opponents. When he was at Michigan during two tours of duty, those teams were 9-2 against the Pac-10, losing only to USC and Washington in the Rose Bowl. But in his five years as an assistant at Colorado, his teams were 4-6 against the Pac-10 including two drubbings by UCLA squads (1982, 1984) on which Karl Dorrell was a receiver.

Just our hunch, but what Miles was really doing in that speech in New Orleans wasn’t promoting his conference, but covering his backside. Although his team is favored to win the SEC, Miles is telling the faithful that if they don’t make it to the BCS Championship game, it’ll be because they play in such a tough conference.

Balderdash. LSU has Mississippi State, Middle Tennessee State, a home game with South Carolina and a trip to New Orleans to play Tulane as four of its first five games, along with a hard game at home against Virginia Tech on September 8. Then they have four hard games with Florida at home, at Kentucky (not that hard), home to Auburn and at Alabama (with an extra week to prepare) and then finish with Louisiana Tech, at Mississippi and home to Arkansas.

With Virginia Tech, Florida and Auburn at home, Miles has nothing to complain about. He just has to stop making excuses and win.