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Sunday, November 22, 2009
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FOOTBALL 2009
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Of all the tools, methods and techniques Les Miles will rely on for his fifth year at the wheel of the LSU football program, two things he won’t bother with are a rearview mirror or a crystal ball.
LSU hasn’t finalized plans for Oct. 31, when Tulane visits Tiger Stadium on the golden anniversary of the school’s most famous football play. But rest assured, Billy Cannon’s 1959 likeness will probably break a few tackles on the stadium’s video boards. For an LSU fan base that lives and dies with its team’s football fortunes, the offseason is a maddening time under the best of circumstances. When that offseason is on the heels of a season that went so drastically wrong but then finished so tantalizingly well, time can’t move fast enough. The star of LSU’s veteran running back corps walks into the Tigers weight room, cuts into an adjacent office and extends his meaty right hand toward you. “I’m Bill Martin,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” Bill Martin is the associate sports information director who arranged the meeting. Charles Scott, that’s the guy with the meaty hands. And he’s kidding. Again. In three seasons at LSU, the 5-foot-11, 235-pound Scott has spent much of his time either cracking shoulder pads or cracking jokes. Patrick Peterson remembers his father teaching him the game he loves with some of his earliest memories. “Ever since I was about 2,” he said. OK, just how strong does this limb need to be? Florida will win the East Division, claim the SEC Championship by beating Alabama, and then play for the national championship for the third time in four years. Talentwise, not much separates the three front-runners in the 2009 West Division race. Where the talent is distributed — particularly what side of the ball it’s on — and how much experience those players have under their belts will be the determining factors in what figures to be a battle to the wire in the West this season. On a clear day — which is hardly the norm in the rainy Northwest — you can stand near the east end zone of Washington’s Husky Stadium and see Mount Rainier, even though the 14,000-foot high mountain is about as far away from Seattle as Baton Rouge is from New Orleans. That gorgeous postcard vista — and the distance involved — is a good analogy of how far Washington football has fallen from the heights of its glorious past. By now he is famous for his businesslike attitude, his calm, reserved demeanor in public. Yet as the final days of summer melted away, old-fashioned Pete Richardson was almost bubbly. Warren Matthews couldn’t help himself. Another session of fall practice loomed at Southern — a guaranteed hot one, at 96 degrees, with no wind and no clouds in sight. By the time longtime NFL defensive coordinator Gregg Williams arrived in New Orleans for a job interview with Saints coach Sean Payton on Jan. 8, there really was no need for an interview. After reaching the 2006 NFC Championship Game and failing to make the playoffs the next two years, there are some who would say that 2009 is a critical season for the New Orleans Saints. LAFAYETTE — The experienced Louisiana-Lafayette offensive line — at least initially — may assume a role that resembles nurturing parents this season. Louisiana Tech senior running back Daniel Porter says he doesn’t have a running style, not one he’d like to pigeon-hole himself into at least. They say you always remember your first time, and Tommy Connors has never forgotten his first college football play. Northwestern State has 16 starters and 51 lettermen back from a team that went 7-5 and finished within a game of sharing the Southland Conference championship at 4-3. One person who isn’t back is coach Scott Stoker, who was fired after seven years at the helm. If you want to say it’s a down year in Louisiana recruiting, write it on a message board or put in a call to your favorite talk-radio show. Don’t mention such rumblings to Archbishop Shaw defensive tackle Elliott Porter, one of the emerging names in Louisiana’s latest recruiting class. Finding a perfect quarterback can sometimes turn into a never-ending search for a high-school football team. Seldom have the words quality, quantity and quarterback all been used in one sentence. The changes are obvious in District 5-5A. Live Oak High and Zachary move up to join the seven-team league, while Woodlawn drops down to Class 4A. Yet the coaches say they won’t be surprised if the race for the title turns into a rerun of sorts. Whenever someone says a football team from the River Parishes has all the tools needed to win a Class 5A state title, people pay attention. St. Thomas More will start this season from a perch with the nod as the predistrict favorite. The Cougars start on that perch because of tradition and 30-plus seniors returning. Not only will the retooled District 3-5A bring together some familiar faces along the Interstate 10 corridor, but it also figures to produce an equally exciting league. The realignment of longtime rivals Acadiana and Lafayette is at the forefront of the new district while, for what is believed for the first time in nearly 10 years, LaGrange returns to Class 5A in the Lake Charles area to join mainstays Barbe and Sulphur in what promises to be quite a ride to the league’s championship. The return of LaGrange from Class 4A is a welcomed sight to one school in particular. In mathematics, the power of two is a formula in which the number two is multiplied by itself a certain number of times. Reclassification has given District 8-4A a unique distinction. It is the only district in the state that features two defending state champions. Perhaps Parkview Baptist and Redemptorist, their rivalry reserved for the final Thursday of the regular season, should just cut to the chase. In 2008, four of the five teams in District 9-3A, including eventual state champion Lutcher, advanced to the state playoffs. This season the district is reconfigured into District 8-3A, and Lutcher and powerful St. Charles Catholic are gone, but the district’s coaches aren’t breathing much easier. It has never been hard for teams in Baton Rouge’s Class 2A football district to command respect. Trying to predict a champion in District 6-1A this season may be akin to picking a traditional power vs. a rising star. Could District 8-1A be the SEC of Class 1A? The coaches in the seven-team district would like to think so. One of the deepest districts in 1A, each team has a surplus of talented skill position players, a norm uncommon in high-school football. There is a new association name and a revamped district alignment. But for Central Private School the objective remains the same. After experiencing the extremes of high school football during the past three years, the Baton Rouge Christian Patriots seek a happy medium. |
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