NCAA Football Lousiana State

The SEC Spring Meeting is taking place in Destin, FL, this week. Football issues being discussed by coaches and presidents include a playoff to replace the BCS, an early signing period for recruits, a fifth year of eligibility for players, and a league-wide discipline policy for underage drinking (ok, that last one's pretty much unofficial). A look at what's been going on...

OF COURSE VANDY DOESN'T SEE THE NEED FOR A PLAYOFF ...

Apparently, the lines of support for a playoff system are drawn roughly on the success of the coaches. In full support of a playoff are Auburn's Tommy Tubberville (whose 2004 undefeated Tigers didn't win a national championship), and LSU's Les Miles (whose Tigers were among the hottest teams at the end of last season). Nick Saban, who surprisingly does have time for this [expletive], wants a playoff as long as it doesn't upset the bowl system. Joining Saban in support of the plus-one model are Houston Nutt and Phillip Fulmer, though all three of those coaches have some work to do before their teams get to a one, not to mention a plus-one. Ultra-uncontroversial Mark Richt and Florida's Urban Meyer have remained neutral on the issue; even though Florida's president, Bernie Machen, is the one who started all this talk to begin with.

Obstinately against a playoff are Rich Brooks, Ed Orgeron, and Sylvester Croom, whose teams are nowhere near needing to worry about a playoff. Steve Spurrier, who supported a playoff back when he was coaching Florida, gets that sentiment: "Right now, I'm at a school that doesn't need to worry about it, so whatever they decide is fine with me."

And then there's Vanderbilt and president Gordon Gee, who in a very Vanderbilt-y statement said "I am totally, unequivocally opposing [a playoff]." The Tennessean also reports that Gee wants to go back to "the old bowl system" and -- I'm just guessing now -- the year 1915, when Vandy was good at football.

There are some other issues on which the SEC coaches are finding more common ground, however.

Score one for the Bayou Bengals. It has been announced that LSU will play Mississippi State in a rare early season SEC league match to kick off the 2007 season. LSU coach Les 'The Hat' Miles can be seen to the right celebrating with one of the moves from Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video. To the surprise of nobody the game will be televised on ESPN Thursday August 30.

ESPN notes that this "continues a tradition" - started last year. Oy.

The Bulldogs were woeful in a 15-0 shutout loss to South Carolina in last year's opener. The game's MVP was Gamecock punter Ryan Succop which says about all you need to know for how that game went. Both starting quarterbacks were knocked out of action early leaving hapless backups to carry already pedestrian offenses through the remaining game action. The game's real drama was in the supposed confiscation of MSU's famous cowbells. Of little surprise many fans snuck the devices into the stadium making a mockery of the policy.

Although without the services of departed quarterback JaMarcus Russell, LSU is a strong favorite to win in a romp here. At least we can save the date, so to speak. I'm just going to pretend there aren't well over six more months until college football. Because if I knew that to be true I'd cry in misery. And I'm not in the mood for misery.

Anyhoo ... the reasoning escapes me at the moment, but those kickoff classic type games were eliminated a year or two ago, robbing college football fans of some great early season shows. Off the top of my head I remember Penn State's Curtis Enis torching the USC defense a while back, I remember the wild Cal/Kansas State shootout that the Bears lost but signaled something positive for the Jeff Tedford era. I remember Reggie Bush scoring three touchdowns against Virginia Tech in a game that catapulted him onto the national stage.

It'd be nice to have that type of game back. Y'know, compelling national matchups and all? Early season battle of titans. This is nice but it's just another SEC league game played out three weeks premature.

Until the fun games return it's LSU/Mississippi State starting the season off with more of a whimper than a bang. But I'll take it, it's football. Just around the corner. Riiiiiight.