They couldn’t be more opposite, and it can’t be more fun

Published 8:23 am Tuesday, December 29, 2015

HOUSTON — It’s like the bowl matchmakers got a devilish streak in them and decided to see just how far they could push the envelope.

If the run-ups to the actual College Football Playoff are decreed to be “meaningless,” then at the least, this thinking goes, they can be a ton of fun.

And, admit it, haven’t they been a blast so far?

But LSU-Texas Tech, this Advocare Texas Bowl, may be taking it to the extreme.

Did they go too far? Maybe flying too close to the sun?

Who was so crass, so bold and just outlandish enough to dream this thing up?

You can almost see the deranged matchmakers at work.

You know, that was fun, sure, but I wonder what would happen if ….

Yeah, hold my beer a sec and just watch this …

No, you wouldn’t dare.

Oh, yes. Dare. Double-dog dare.

LSU and Texas Tech.

Yeah, baby we’re going to Defcom 5.

And why not?

ESPN will handle the telecast, but this could just as well be reality TV at corniest.

Just look at the two head coaches up there. They were sharing the podium at Monday’s pre-bowl press conference.

There’s Les Miles, the good Mad Hatter, still smirking and winking at you after his near-death November.

Miles, you know. Everybody’s favorite uncle, always the life of the birthday party, pulling coins out of his ear and loving being the butt of any joke.

Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury is your way cool older cousin you always wished you could be.

Monday he looked like he stepped right off the cover of GQ.

Kingsbury was wearing the fashionable tight skinny suit, shiny and casually tie-less and with just a touch of mousse, while Miles was buttoned down in stocky pallbearer black, the traditional three-piece cut topped by a perfect Windsor knot.

Kingbury’s bio says he is 36-years-old, but he looks and acts younger.

He is a carefee bachelor, of course, and at Red Raider home games the coeds in the student section are known to hold up signs proclaiming “Our Coach is Way Hotter than Yours.”

Miles? We can’t even keep up with number the bustling kids in his brood — four at last count — seemingly always mischievously underfoot and ready to play second banana to his Chevy Chase hijinks in the next Lampoon Vacation movie.

Kingsbury is probably the coolest coach, in that millennial hip sort of way, in all of the NCAA, and you get the feeling he knows it.

Miles’ players sometimes don’t understand a word he says, but they’d run through a brick wall for their lovably crazy guy.

Kingsbury’s Red Raiders players probably just want to be his wingman for a night.

Miles is fit as can be for 62, but posing with the bowl trophy Monday alongside Kingsbury made him want to instinctively suck in his gut.

Then Miles realized that Kingsbury was actually Texas Tech’s quarterback when Miles was head coach at Oklahoma State and had to stop him.

So tonight will be the first time Miles has coached against somebody who also played against him.

“Yeah, I think this is the first time,” Miles answered slowly, as if the revelation hadn’t him until then.

“It says you’re getting old, coach,” Kingsbury chimed in sympathetically.

“I’m old, yeah, that’s exactly what he’s saying,” Miles admitted.

So, go ahead, find a more glaring odd couple on opposite sidelines for your bowl season.

“Actually, I think there are a lot of similarities going on,” Kingsbury said.

He was probably just being nice, but Miles readily agreed.

“Except for being tall and having a lot more hair,” Miles said.

Kingsbury does have a bit of a goofy streak, but, again, in that disaffected youth sort of way. Years from now, he might be Miles and have the quirks down to a science.

But not now.

No matter.

The coaches’ look, affectations and quirks are secondary to this grand experiment.

They may have become fast buddies from different generations the last couple of days, but how about their approaches to the game?

“Now, there’s a good question,” Miles said.

In this coaching scene, Miles would be the crotchety old neighbor hollering at Kingsbury to turn the nuclear volume down on that gosh awful hip-hop.

This game is part Beverly Hillbillies, part Jurassic Park, part Back to the Future.

Again, back to the lab where the mad matchmakers are at work.

So we take this new-age, revved-up style and drop it into prehistoric times.

We’re listening.

Kingsbury game plan is totally new-wave, with all the fancy gadgets, slick as a whistle, up-tempo and seemingly always trying to stay one step ahead of his casual approach to honest defense.

Miles’ style could be best described as Greco-Roman football. He just wants to beat you up.

There are varying degrees of both styles out there, but Texas Tech and LSU are probably the absolute extremes.

Somebody was just crazy enough to put them in the same stadium, light the fuse and run for cover.

LSU is a seven-point favorite, but like most mad experiments, this one could blow up in either team’s face.

But it ought to be fun to watch.