Memo to the Pac-10: Les Miles Does Not Speak for the Southeastern Conference

by T Kyle King on Jul 6, 2007 11:04 PM EDT in Football

In late May, while discussing the possibility of a Division I-A college football playoff, Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer made a fairly lengthy statement in partial support of the "plus-one" model, during which he made one silly observation:

Maybe some of the other conferences have teams like Michigan that play just two or three tough conference games a year.

Although Coach Fulmer's remark was but a single sentence---and a qualified one, at that---in a longer playoff-related observation, his comment deservedly drew both attention and criticism. For my part, I felt moved to write the following in reply:

When Coach Fulmer offered his ignorant utterance, he said something foolish and false, for which S.E.C. fans should be the first to call him out because he made us all look bad by conforming to the popular stereotype of Southern football fans as condescending detractors of teams and leagues from New England, the Midwest, and the West.

Accordingly, when it was brought to my attention that Louisiana State's Les Miles recently had made the same observation much more pointedly and at greater length, I did my best to make good on my previous commitment by writing:

Stop it. Stop that nonsense right now. If you want to say the S.E.C. is the toughest conference in college football, fine; if you want to say that, this year, the league is tougher at the top than any other, there's a pretty good case to be made for that proposition, although these things change more rapidly than one might expect.

This business about there being one or two or four good teams in other B.C.S. conferences, though, is just dumb.

With regard to Coach Miles's specific criticism of the Pac-10, I offered this response:

To use the most commonly-maligned example of the conferences Coach Miles cited, the Pac-10 is often disparaged as a one-team league . . . "Southern California and the nine dwarves." Similar animadversions were hurled at the S.E.C. during Florida's run of dominance under Steve Spurrier and they held no more water then than they do now.

Does the Pac-10 contain more than one or two good teams? From 2000 to 2006, six different teams won or shared the Pac-10 title in a seven-year span. Eight squads from the Pacific Coast conference have won at least part of a league crown in the last decade and all 10 teams in the West Coast B.C.S. league have captured a conference title in the last 14 seasons.

Meanwhile, six of the last seven Southeastern Conference championships have been won by the league's three dominant teams: Georgia (2002 and 2005), Florida (2000 and 2006), and L.S.U. (2001 and 2003). Nine consecutive S.E.C. championship games have been decided by double-digit margins and half of the league's member institutions have not won a conference title more recently than George Bush's first year in the White House . . . the first George Bush, that is.

In saying so, I don't believe I did anything particularly noteworthy, and certainly not anything unique. Indeed, the consensus seems to be that Les Miles is a big honkin' dufus. Nevertheless, I fear that my SportsBlogs Nation colleague Dave of Addicted to Quack painted with much too broad a brush when he wrote (accompanied by a mild adult language advisory):

We all know that there has been somewhat of a rivalry between the SEC and the Pac-10 developing in recent years. You see, all the rednecks down south, who believe that football supremacy is a [G]od-given right, don't want to believe that the laid back, full o' hippies, pot smokin west can play football, too. They'd have you believe that downtrodden Stanford is the textbook textbook [sic.] Pac-10 program, while conveniently forgetting such SEC stalwarts as Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. The SEC is king of college football, and the West Coast boys best get out of town 'fore they be lynched.

At the forefront of this rivalry, and some may argue the reason for its being, is the mythical rivalry between USC and LSU. As you remember, back in '03, SC and LSU shared the national title, as #1 USC was somehow shut out of the great BCS, and LSU beat Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl. Now, you'd think LSU would be happy that they got half the title, seeing as they would surely have had their ass beat down if they would have played SC. Or, if they were angry, sure it would be at Oklahoma for crashing the party when they clearly didn't belong. But no. LSU fans are still in a tizzy over USC, even all these years later. And this rivalry has extended to be a Pac-10 vs. SEC brouhaha in general. If you ask an SEC fan, everything that is wrong with college football starts in the Pac-10.

As someone with a fondness for tales of redneck fortitude, I will not quarrel with Dave's pejorative use of that term. I likewise will overlook the supposed certainty of an L.S.U. loss to U.S.C., secure in the knowledge that everyone knew Oklahoma had no chance of beating Florida State, Ohio State had no chance of beating Miami, and Florida had no chance of beating Ohio State, so the inevitability of a Bayou Bengal loss to the Trojans may be added to the list of national championship outcomes everyone recognizes as foreordained that might not have been quite so certain.

With respect to Dave's other item of rhetorical overkill, I don't know what David Lynch has to do with anything, but I enjoy his work.

I would, however, respectfully suggest that Dave needs to be a bit more judicious in his generalities. His characterizations offered animadversions against "all the rednecks down south" and purported to give the answer you would get "[i]f you ask an SEC fan."

Well, I am an S.E.C. fan and I am among all the rednecks down South and, if permitted to get a word in edgewise, I wouldn't mind speaking on my own behalf for the benefit of everyone who chooses to view me as a stereotypical caricature rather than an independent-minded individual.

For the record, I am an S.E.C. homer who bleeds red and black and freely admits his biases. Nevertheless, despite being a lifelong Georgia fan, I have defended U.S.C.'s claim to the 2003 national championship and rooted for the Pac-10 against the S.E.C.'s next-door neighbor, the A.C.C., in the N.C.A.A. women's tennis tournament and in the College World Series. (I drew some criticism for the latter decision, too.)

I am an S.E.C. fan who respects other conferences, so, whenever the (vastly overstated, in my opinion) feud between the Pac-10 and the S.E.C. rears its ugly head, I typically try (though, admittedly, not always successfully) to promote peace and good and brotherhood.

Crystal Blue Persuasion.

It is one thing to conflate Phillip Fulmer's opinions with those of S.E.C. football fans; although I consider that to be a mistake, at least Coach Fulmer's Southeastern Conference roots run deep. Where, though, does anyone get off supposing that Les Miles has the faintest clue about Southern football? For those preferring to withhold judgment until they are familiar with actual facts, here is the file on Les Miles:

Les Miles was raised in Elyria, Ohio. He attended the University of Michigan, winning two varsity letters with the Wolverines in 1974 and 1975 before graduating with a degree in economics in 1976. Coach Miles served as an assistant to his mentor, Bo Schembechler, in 1980 and 1981 before accepting a position on Bill McCartney's staff at Colorado in 1982.

After spending five seasons with the Buffaloes, Coach Miles returned to Ann Arbor for a second stint as a Michigan assistant, remaining with the Maize and Blue through 1994. In 1995, he became the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State and Coach Miles remained in Stillwater until he was offered a job as the tight ends coach of the Dallas Cowboys. He held that post from 1998 to 2000.

In 2001, Coach Miles began what was to be a four-year stint as the head coach at Oklahoma State. Finally, in 2005, he was hired as the head coach at Louisiana State.

For those of you keeping score at home, Les Miles was born and raised in a Big Ten state, played football at and graduated from a Big Ten school, spent a decade coaching in the Big Ten, spent six years coaching in the Big Eight, spent six years coaching in the Big 12, and spent three years coaching in the N.F.L. before acquiring his initial association with the Southeastern Conference two years ago, at the impressionable age of 51 years.

"Do I look 50 to you?"

Les Miles has spent roughly seven and a half per cent of his 27-year coaching career in the employ of a Southeastern Conference institution. Les Miles has spent less than four per cent of his lifespan living in a state which is home to an S.E.C. school. Having spent 100 per cent of my lifetime as a Georgia resident and a Bulldog fan, I feel qualified to state that this humongous-headed carpetbagger is unqualified to speak for me and my kind. For crying out loud, I was operating an S.E.C. football weblog before Les Miles had ever coached a down of Southeastern Conference football.

To be fair, Les Miles is not a representative example of the Big Ten that produced him, either. As MGoBlog's Brian Cook carefully explicates, Coach Miles's behavior would not go over well at his alma mater:

First of all, the guy has a verbal diarrhea that fits in at Michigan about as well as John L Smith controlled his emotions. This very week Miles said a bunch of intemperate things about the Pac 10 on a radio show that stand in marked contrast to Carr's reticence to do anything that could be construed as campaigning during the Michigan-Florida election window last December. A few months ago he [made] the sort of public utterance that would cause the Michigan establishment to get woozy and collapse, Southern Belle style, into Mary Sue Coleman's arms. All it took for Gary Moeller to get fired was one bad night at a restaurant. Les Miles has bad nights twice a year.

Brian says it best: "Miles is, um, unique." Although he played and coached at Michigan, Les Miles lacks the class to be a Michigan man. Although he currently coaches in the S.E.C., Les Miles lacks the class of such league colleagues of his as Mark Richt. Coach Miles's oddities and idiocy ought not to be ascribed to the conference that originally produced him or to the conference that presently employs him, but only to the man himself.

Les, like Shrek, is one of a kind. Also, they both have uncommonly large melons.

To his credit, Dave winds up his retort to Coach Miles by narrowing his criticism and focusing it on its proper target, noting correctly that "Tennessee and Georgia are currently scheduling Pac-10 teams." As an advocate of tougher non-conference scheduling, I am pleased that the Bulldogs have upcoming home-and-home series with Arizona State and Oregon, and that the Red and Black tried to get Oregon State on the schedule.

Les Miles is a moron. We all agree on that. Let us leave it at that. The offer I made last August still stands: I won't give you a reason to believe that I have an East Coast bias if you'll agree not to give me a reason to believe that you have a West Coast bias.

Go 'Dawgs!

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Comments

A bit of an apology

First off, I want to apologize to those who took my post the wrong way. This was never meant as a criticism of all SEC fans, nor was it meant to be an attack of all southerners as "Rednecks. This post was meant toward a certain segment of SEC fan, and I should have made that more clear.

However, the fact is that for some reason, a significant segment of SEC fans have made the Pac-10 the unwarranted subject of their criticism for some time now. I know not why this segment of fans has chosen to make the Pac-10 the subject of their hatred, but I ask them to please be judicous and look at the facts. When you look at the conference's record in bowl games and out of conference competition, it stacks up very well against the rest of the country. USC's dominance, rather than being a sign of Pac-10 weakness, shows just how good that program has been. There is no reason to believe that an Oregon or Cal couldn't hold its own in the SEC, just as there is no reason to believe that LSU or Tennessee would go undefeated in the Pac-10 every year.

The SEC is a good conference, and over the last few years has boasted more legitimate national championship contenders than any other conference. That success is phenomenal, and SEC fans should be proud. But over the last decade, the Pac-10, Big 10, and Big 12 have all had years where they have been the dominant conference. Such things tend to be cyclical in college sports.

While my post was written with emotion and was intentionally trying to get under the skin of a certain segment of people, I will make an effort to make sure that is more clear in the future. However, to the segment of fans that the post was directed to, I give no apology to those fans. No school, conference, or region has a fundamental right to college football supremacy. In fact, part of what makes college sports great is that a Utah, Boise State, or Marshall can play with and beat the big boys. Rather than being disillusioned about one's own team, we need to respect our opponents while still rooting our team on. The track record speaks for itself. And the Pac-10 has done more than enough to earn respect. But for those who choose not to give it, that speaks far more about you than it does the Pacific Ten Conference.

Addicted to Quack, SBN's Oregon Ducks Blog

by Addicted to Quack on Jul 7, 2007 1:05 AM EDT 0 recs

I freely admit that the S.E.C. . . .

. . . has its fair share of yahoos, although I believe the same could be said for every conference's fan base.

There certainly is an element in the South that still sneers, "The Pac-10's not a real conference." Such statements are sheer nonsense and conscientious S.E.C. fans should do their part to correct such people or marginalize them. Legitimate comparisons, contrasts, and criticisms are one thing; blanket denunciations, unencumbered by facts, make us all look bad, which is why I try to address such silliness (particularly when coming from S.E.C. coaches, who ought to know better) promptly.

There does, however, appear to be an equally strong segment on the West Coast that possesses a visceral disdain for the Southeastern Conference. As with the yahoo contingent in the Southeast, these people are a small yet vocal minority who appear in disproportionate numbers on some message boards. Thus, we get comments such as this:

I hate the SEC

I have so much to say about why I hate the SEC that I cannot possibly say it here, now. I think everyone knows how I feel about this guy. If I thought I hated Harbaugh I guess in hindsight I really didn't, not after reading this trash! I HATE THE SEC!

It's one thing for me to say (as I often do) "I hate Auburn." I know Auburn people. I live in the state that probably contains the country's second-highest concentration of Auburn fans. My team has played Auburn every year of my lifetime. I know from Auburn.

Most of the yahoos on both coasts have never attended one of the other conference's games or met any of the other conference's fans face-to-face. Consequently, we deal in stereotypical generalizations---inbred backwoodsmen with chaws in their cheeks and white robes in their closets against prissy tree-huggers sharing marijuana cigarettes and wearing tie-dyed T-shirts---that bear no resemblance to the latter-day reality and never were representative of more than a small minority.

I have no problem calling a yahoo a yahoo, regardless of his Z.I.P. code, but I want to be careful not to cast too wide a net. You are, unfortunately, correct that some S.E.C. fans have an unnatural, unnecessary, unhealthy, and unjustified disdain for the Pac-10. Personally, I don't see why they feel this way; as evidenced by the SportsBlogs Nation stable of Pac-10 bloggers, West Coast fans are an impassioned, intelligent, likeable bunch with whom the best S.E.C. fans have much in common.

As I see it, our job is to raise the tenor of the conversation, even when singling out those who are not living up to the standards we ought to expect from fans of major intercollegiate athletics programs. I appreciate your clarification that you were directing attention to a particular (and particularly vocal) segment of fans rather than an entire league's fans en masse and I agree with you that the boosters on neither coast have adequate reasons for heaping wholesale condemnation upon the other conference.

Thanks for making that clear. Hopefully, partisans of both B.C.S. leagues will have moved past this dispute by the time the Ducks welcome the 'Dawgs to Autzen Stadium on September 19, 2015, and Georgia hosts Oregon between the hedges on September 17, 2016. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

by T Kyle King on Jul 7, 2007 8:43 AM EDT up 0 recs

Elyria Ohio

Every time I see "Elyria," I think of my wife's story of heading from Ann Arbor to Florida in her parents' 70s Fiat wagon, only to be hailed by concerned citizens on the highway in Elyria because there were flames coming out of the car.

So in my mind, Elyria is associated with predictable failures from erratic machinery which has a few design quirks and might have been a Friday afternoon build.

Which, in a way, seems pertinent to a discussion of Mr Miles.

by DC Trojan on Jul 7, 2007 1:38 AM EDT 0 recs

college football

While I am subject to "homerism" (both types), I think that for one person to completely disregard an entire conference and write them off is in complete conflict with the statement that one is a fan of college football.
I can't stand ND, but not to recognize that the Irish had good teams (60 years ago) is foolishness. Likewise, the Pac 10, Big 10(1) and Big 12 (and possibly the ACC- don't tell Kyle) have all had great teams that make up the fabric of the tapestry that is College Football.*

*note: Auburn is excluded from this principle.

by fotodog on Jul 7, 2007 9:07 AM EDT 0 recs

Shondells

Thanks for the reference to Tommy James and the Shondells - easily one of my top 5 groups. Uh, yeah, the Rolling Stones are still munber 1.

"Herschel is just a big, slow back". - Vince Dooley; August, 1980

by Elmo Lewis on Jul 7, 2007 10:04 AM EDT 0 recs

My favorite Tommy James song . . .

. . . is the one about the longstanding Georgia non-conference rival and the furry blue Muppet being endlessly repeated.

You know the one I mean: "Clemson and Grover, over and over . . ."

by T Kyle King on Jul 8, 2007 10:08 PM EDT up 0 recs

Elyria, Conference Strength, and Les Miles

First, I want to say that my friends and I call Elyria "the black death." I am from Michigan--a U of M alumnus and current graduate student--and I don't even think green things grow in Elyria. I stopped there once for a pit-stop on a road-trip. I will never stop there again.

Second, the conference-strength debate is one of the most overrated debates in sports. One reason I say so is because the gap between the conferences is not nearly as large as anyone might think. I currently believe that the SEC is the strongest conference in the nation, but I don't think the SEC is head-and-shoulders above every other conference. Sure, a conference might have a down year when it is uncharacteristically weak, but, for the most part, the differences aren't all that great.

Another reason I say the debate is overrated is because it is too often used as a handicap when it is effectively the opposite. For example, the Big Ten had an uncharacteristically down year last year. Michigan and Ohio State showed that they were not adequately battle-tested come bowl season. If the teams had been forced to slug it out in a few more games against elite competition (Ohio State didn't even get Wisconsin), I'm sure both would have made a better showing in their respective bowl games--not necessarily wins, but better games.

I am a die-hard hockey fan. I might be speaking to the wrong audience on this example, but my team (Michigan) plays in the CCHA. The CCHA--aside from a fluke national championship this past spring--has grown into an embarrassment of an athletic conference. Michigan annually boasts the best offensive stats in college hockey after spending a season beating up on weak opponents. The team is certainly elite, putting line after line of NHL draftees on the ice, but every year, come tournament and Frozen Four time, Michigan has to actually work for a win rather than protect a multi-goal lead. They don't have the experience to overcome. And what I perceive as the better team goes home early.

So, while the toughest-conference claim is repeatedly used as an excuse or as a reason for whining, let's think about how it actually affects the teams. I was frustrated as hell last year with the Big Ten. I'm frustrated as hell every year with the CCHA. I know that, in order for my team to win it all, they need to be prepared to face other elite teams. And the only way to do that is to play other elite teams. Having a tough conference is a blessing, not a curse.

Finally, if Les Miles was the coach of Michigan and started saying the ridiculous garbage that he likes to say, I would be on a mountain shouting that he doesn't speak for my school. Any backlash that the SEC receives for his blabbering is completely unfounded. He has only made himself look bad. He's joining the likes of Mack Brown, Tommy Tuberville, and Urban Meyer as the coaches who forget that they are the faces of major programs and who do a pathetic job of publicly representing the students they coach and the institutions that employ them.

by ejchis on Jul 7, 2007 11:04 AM EDT 0 recs

Mack Brown?

Seriously? On what do you base this?

Mack represents us extraordinarily well. I'm honestly mystified by this.

PB at BON

by HornsFan on Jul 7, 2007 11:53 PM EDT up 0 recs

Peter

he's probably referring to the whole lobbying to get into the BCS over Cal incident. It left a bad taste in some mouths.

Addicted to Quack, SBN's Oregon Ducks Blog

by Addicted to Quack on Jul 8, 2007 1:42 PM EDT up 0 recs

although...

in Brown's case, he was trying to do something to tangibly benefit his kids and his program, so I think its a little different. He wasn't being a flaming idiot like Miles was.

Addicted to Quack, SBN's Oregon Ducks Blog

by Addicted to Quack on Jul 8, 2007 1:43 PM EDT up 0 recs

Correct

I am referring to the lobbying issue. It did leave a bad taste in my mouth. Lobbying strikes me as a horribly classless move. Lloyd Carr has his fair share of faults, but, last winter, when he said that the voters are in place to make the call and that he would accept the decision made, I thought this was the classiest statement he could've made. I was proud of the way he was representing the University of Michigan. Granted, I wasn't too high on the rematch idea anyway, but I still think it was wrong for the voters to change the order in the rankings without Michigan playing. Michigan should've dropped behind all potential candidates after losing to Ohio State. To stay on point, though, I view the lobbying as a selfish, classless, and immature act. For a coach who is supposed to also be a teacher and mentor to young men to set that kind of an example really rubs me the wrong way.

by ejchis on Jul 12, 2007 2:43 PM EDT up 0 recs

Strong Language

That being said (I just reread my original post), I think it is a bit strong to say that Mack Brown does a pathetic job of representing the University of Texas. That was an overstatement, and I apologize. His lobbying in 2004 struck me as an act of poor representation of the university. Outside that incident, I actually have nothing negative to say about Mack Brown.

by ejchis on Jul 12, 2007 2:46 PM EDT up 0 recs

Those are excellent points, ejchis

You're right. The gaps between any given B.C.S. conference and the conferences directly above and below it are quite small and change from year to year. Two years ago, we were wondering whether the Big East was worthy of an automatic B.C.S. bowl bid; now, the Big East looks like a league on the rise . . . and, yes, fotodog, I admit that the A.C.C. generally will be better than it was last year.

The point that a tough conference schedule makes a good team stronger rather than weaker is a good one that is borne out by experience. Since expanding 15 years ago, the S.E.C. has produced a national champion Alabama squad in 1992, an undefeated Auburn squad in 1993, a Florida squad in 1995 that made it to the national championship game, a national champion Florida squad in 1996, a Tennessee squad in 1997 that made it to the designated national championship game, a national champion Tennessee team in 1998, a national champion L.S.U. team in 2003, an undefeated Auburn squad in 2004, and a national champion Florida team in 2006 (not counting a Tennessee team in 2001 and a Georgia team in 2002 that each fell one loss shy of playing in the national championship game). The argument that the toughness of S.E.C. schedules is keeping the league's teams out of national championship contention is simply false.

Finally, I appreciate your acknowledgment that Les Miles speaks only for himself, not for his alma mater, his employer, or his newfound conference. If he keeps going at this rate, other Michigan alumni are going to regard Les Miles the way other Georgia alumni regard Pat Dye.

by T Kyle King on Jul 7, 2007 12:11 PM EDT 0 recs

It is safe to say

that most savvy CFB fans respect both conferences and that those from the pac 10 respect and tip their hat to the SEC and its fan base.

the problem here is that a coach said it thus inserting himself into what amounts to a fans argument. surely he could have said something better than that.

for that he is truly idiotic.

Conquest Chronicles

by Paragon SC on Jul 8, 2007 2:06 PM EDT 0 recs

Well put

You are exactly correct, Paragon SC. Good job.

by T Kyle King on Jul 8, 2007 10:09 PM EDT up 0 recs

Poll

I tried to figure out how to comment on the poll at right, but I'm too busy wasting my last summer doing nothing to waste my time doing something-like that. The point is, however, that failure to include the Georgia Dome on a list of places I like to watch Georgia play is a gross oversight on your part, and I've come to expect better.

by Bodey on Jul 8, 2007 7:34 PM EDT 0 recs