Ripper Ramblings

Wonderful Time. With the coaching derby heating up and the bowl games being sorted out, this is the best time of year to be a college football fan. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night will all feature games with significant BCS implications.

Michigan. It will be interesting to see if Les Miles can have his cake and eat it too by winning a national title at LSU and coaching Michigan for the 2008 season. Miles is facing two once-in-a-lifetime opportunities at exactly the same time. Before discussing the minefield Miles will need to cross in the coming months, let's give the question of why Lloyd Carr announce his retirement so soon? If Carr simply kept the seat warm for a little longer, Miles' life would be a heck of a lot easier right now. Recruiting could have continued as if Carr was going to be the head coach in '08 and the shorter layoff than the possible 51 days between coaches would be beneficial. I'll offer a few possible explanation. The most cynical reason is that Carr may not want Miles to take over his former post. Carr may have seen the tough spot Miles is in and jumped in order to keep Miles out. Carr made comments at his final press conference about it not being real important that the next head coach be a Michigan man, which Miles is. Strange. A few more benign possibilities are that Michigan felt that the Carr retirement cat was already out of the bag. By Carr waiting until after the bowls to announce, the courtship of Miles may have benefitted little. Carr could have announced early for selfish reasons too. He'll get to enjoy his final bowl game and won't have to answer a single question about whether he is retiring. Lastly, if Carr had waited until after the Michigan bowl game, Miles would have a storm to deal with in the few days leading up to the National Title Game.

Getting back to Michigan's pursuit of Miles, there are three possibilities. Miles is hired to coach Michigan before the bowl games, Miles is hired after the bowl games, or he is not hired at all. If Miles is hired before the bowls, it makes it very difficult for him to win a national title. LSU may not want him to coach the national title game if he has already been hired by another school. Many Tiger supporters felt that Nick Saban shouldn't have coached in their loss to Iowa in the Capital One Bowl since he had already accepted an NFL job. The only significant coaching change to occur prior to the playing of a national title game was when Georgia had already hired then FSU offensive coordinator Mark Richt before losing to Oklahoma. Miles himself has admitted that he was distracted by talks with LSU while preparing for his 33-7 Alamo Bowl loss in his last game as head coach at Oklahoma State. Now, if LSU loses in the Boot Game or the SEC title, jumping ship before the post game press conference would make sense for Miles.

The more likely scenario is for Michigan to wait the 51 days until after the national title game. That won't be easy on either party. The 37 longest days in Alabama football history all occurred between firing Mike Shula and hiring Saban. The wait out would be painful for Michigan. More importantly, it would be too big of a risk on Michigan's part if they don't have an under the table agreement with Miles. From Miles standpoint, the day-in-day out questioning he would receive would make it difficult to focus on the national title.


In order for Miles to become the next head coach at Michigan one of challenging situations would need to be taken on. Either he would have to coach LSU in the national title if allowed or Michigan would need to leave one of the biggest jobs in college football open for 51 days. The downside of either choice is just too great. Baring a regular season loss by LSU, Miles will not be Michigan's man.

No Comment. With the opening of the Michigan job, guys like Rich Rodriquez and Bob Stoops have been able to publicly turn down the job. While it is easy for them to do, it makes it very difficult for their coaching brethren who many have interest in that job or any other. A coaching association should get everyone on the same page to not comment on jobs if they are currently employed. Coach's should agree with each other to simply give the "no comment" response whenever asked about a job. Even for off the wall possibilities like Tony Dungy taking the Minnesota Gophers' job a year ago. It is certainly resonable for a coach to have an eye on another job, but in fairness to his current employers he can't express that. Currently that leaves coaches with only one option, to lie. Saban certainly paid the price for that a year ago, but it was his only option. Coaches need to get together and fix this problem. It would greatly improve the profession. What Miles says about the Michigan job will mean very little, but by his fellow coaches responding to other jobs he'll be forced to stand up there and bable.

Big Ten. If the Big Ten coaches are voting for the Heisman Trophy, Brian Brohm may still have a shot. Apparently many Big Ten coaches simply turned in their preseason first team ballets as they selected Chad Henne as the conferences first team quaterback. A better case could be made for Henne having the worst year amongst starting Big Ten signal callers than him having the best year. He played in only nine games (including Wisconsin). Amazingly, all other starting Big Ten quarterbacks played in all 12 of their team's games. The media didn't recognize Henne as honorable mention, which is very justifiable. The coaches failed to give Northwestern quaterback C.J. Bacher honorable mention despite leading the conference in passing. Michigan State's Brian Hoyer also didn't receive honorable mention status by the coaches despiting being better than Henne in QB rating, completion percentage, yards, touchdowns, and tied with interceptions. Iowa's Jake Christensen - who many would call the conference's worst quaterback - lead Henne in yardage and touchdown passes, while throwing fewer interceptions. Henne's passing numbers are only slightly better than Illinois' Juice Williams, but Williams out rushed Henne by 870 yards (Henne finished the season with a negative rushing total). Here's a rundown of Henne's conference passing rankings amoungst starters: QB rating - 7, Completion percentage - 9, yards - 10, touchdowns - 10. It's votes like these that make you gringe to think that coaches vote for who plays in the BCS title game.

ACC vs. SEC. Thanksgiving weekend will allow for fans to gauge the relative strength of the ACC and SEC. The two conferences face off in four games. Wake Forest @ Vanderbilt; Georgia @ Georgia Tech (a rare chance to see the SEC play on ABC); Florida State @ Florida; and Clemson @ South Carolina.

Hawaii. Three players for BCS bowls were put on the road having to win tough games with their backup quaterback. Oklahoma loss to Texas Tech and Oregon loss to Arizona. The Rainbow Warriors were able to prevail in Reno. Give them credit.

Kansas. While the nation is shocked that Manginotown has gone 11-0, perhaps more amazingly is that the Jayhawks are 11-0 against the spread. The gamblers must love coach Mangino as much as he's hated by Lawrence, KS buffet owners.