As publisher of the award-winning e-NOSE PICK Report (if Ole Piss can claim a “national championship” I can claim a Pulitzer), I would like to announce that I will no longer make disparaging remarks about Coach Les Miles, formerly known in the pages of e-NPR as Floyd Smoot (so named, derisively so, for the high-hatted conductor of The Cannonball from the old Petticoat Junction television series). I promise to love, honor and support Coach Miles in victory and defeat. I will defend his ill-timed remarks. I will find the silver lining in his seemingly irrational decisions. I will refrain from remarking on his strange habits, such as wearing a jacket in the Louisiana heat and humidity. From this day forward e-NPR will be 100% behind Coach Les Miles. To steal a paraphrase from the great economist Kinky Friedman, we are all Milesians now.

I tried being anti-Miles, and it kept blowing up in my face. When he blew that 21 point halftime lead against Tennessee in his first home game, I sincerely believed that the best thing for LSU would be to “Save Time and Save The Program: Fire Les Miles Now” as e-NPR so famously advocated. He made me look silly by winning every single game between that one and the SEC championship game. But still I railed against The Sage of Michigan, even pleaded that he take his big ole head back to Ann Arbor, and what does he do? Goes out and wins the National Championship, and creates a legend in the process. The Mad Hatter. Have a nice day. Grrrrrrr!!!! But did I give him credit? Hell, no. I still made fun of him, even as we celebrated the win over Ohio State.

He skated along on that halo for a while, slipping a bit each year, tying his fortunes to Jordan Jefferson, who had all the promise of an Allen Stanford certificate of deposit. Then came Ole Miss. The debacle in Oxfart – home of the 2003 Western Division Champions. National laughingstock that he became – I was sure we had him out of town after that one, and the tide (no pun intended) really seemed to turn in my favor in 2010 when only a heads-up snap from T-Bob Hebert over that oh-so-empty head of Jordan Jefferson kept us from getting Dooley-ed v. Tennessee in Tiger Stadium. Bastard can’t tell time. He’s got to go! He’s a doofus! In over his head! Championship in ’07 was a fluke! Then he goes out and beats Alabama, inexplicably eating grass like he’s Mr. Ed, adding even more weird to his weirdness.

Nobody, I mean nobody, could be expected to get through that nut-cutter of a schedule we had in 2011. Oregon in the opener in Dallas, West frickin’ Virginia in Morgantown, Alabama on the road – but of course he did. Then he took down Georgia - in the Georgia Bowl Dome no less. Thirteen and oh. One of the greatest runs in college football history, and nobody will ever remember it because the lucky shits from Tuscaloser got another chance to play us, with an excellent team of their own and with The Prick to game plan. And we hardly show up BUT we did manage to bring along Jordan Jefferson who played more like Thomas Jefferson, while our Great White Hope never saw the field which had the unfortunate side effect of putting Miles-haters in bed with the Klan wing of the Tiger fan base. Still, most everybody recognized that the Fates of Football were against us having to play that rematch, and kind of let the pain fade away over the summer.

Which brings us to 2012. Just like ’11, we were a quarterback away from a possible National Championship. Damn Miles! Why was he so slavishly devoted to Jefferson – he could have developed Kaiser Mettenberger! A Luftwaffe added to the blitzkreiging Wehrmacht! Despite some glaring disciplinary lapses on the field and a most noticeable one off the field – apparently significant enough to require an unprecedented re-vote for the AP preseason Top 25 - we were good enough that it could be us facing the Bulldogs in Atlanta again, and going to the BCSNCG again. But Les goes all Mad Hatter against Nick the Prick, like he doesn’t think he can win the game straight up, and then watches Steadman Shealy or Jay Barker or whatever utilitarian Alabama quarterback it was look like gum-toothed John friggin’ Elway running the two-minute drill. But Miles rebounds to win the final three SEC games, the final two being nail-biters against 5-5 Ole Piss and 4-7 R-Kansas.

And he parlays THAT into a $27,000,000 million offer from the same team that five years ago he couldn’t even pronounce.

Then, AD Tony Oliva trips over his pecker getting to the podium to announce that LSU has trumped the Pig. Oliva was threw money at Coach Miles in the same way he threw lacrosse players under the bus back at Duke. He was as quick to extend Miles contract as he was to believe that black hooker. Give ole Tony credit – he can be nimble. We still don’t know why he’s not in the Hall of Fame.

Anyway: I surrender.

No more jibes. No more smart arse sarcasm. e-NPR is pledging to be All Miles, All The Time. Nothing but positive from here on out. Miles will get better press from e-NPR than Stalin got from Pravda. I promise.

Remember fondly, if you will, the references to Floyd Smoot, The Jacket, the eating of grass, the wanting of want, backends of getting victory, the musings that Miles is schizoid Bo Schembechler/Bozo the Clown.

Gone.

Coach Les Miles, you have won. Our dignity, our reputation – it’s yours. You are The Man.

George E. (Baby Doc) Fenton
Piney Woods Publishing Company
Publisher of e-NOSE PICK Report,
sponsor of the Cappelletti Trophy awarded annually to the nation’s top Caucasian running back.