LSU prefers quit August news cycle
Published 8:45 am Friday, August 12, 2016
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Only in August do serious football fans, for reasons they’ll never be able to fully explain or comprehend, find themselves tuning to TMZ for their hard-news fix.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">I’ll explain that one here in a bit (spoiler alert: blame it on the times we live in).</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it’s the age-old dilemma for football-hungry fans in August.</span>
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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">News.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You can’t really even say that no news is good news.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But, as a rule of thumb, it usually beats the alternative.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Given the war-room secrecy behind which most SEC camps operate, no news is the most common kind that doesn’t leak out from behind those walls.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Most good news, even merely encouraging news, is just speculation wrapped in a click-bait package.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yet it reaches epidemic levels in August, one optimistic tale after another of this or that affliction fixed, usually by a new coach who is so much smarter (or fun to play for) than the fool who was there last year.</span>
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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But these story lines are not really to be trusted.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">For instance, at LSU the party line is that Brandon Harris is a new and improved quarterback this season. He took the team by the horns during summer’s “voluntary” workouts. He’s more accurate, more poised, more experienced, more comfortable in what is rumored to be a more wide-open offense.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Good news?</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s certainly not bad news.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not yet, anyway.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There’s always the chance, however, it might be nothing more than wishful thinking.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It might even be a giant scam hatched by coaches who in reality are shaking in their boots wondering if he’ll ever learn to throw an intermediate touch pass.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">At best, the discerning Tigers fan, even the most optimistic of them, knows he’s got to see this one with his own eyes before accepting it on blind faith.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yet, when starting LSU defensive tackle Christian LaCouture, one of the true team leaders, is lost for the season to a knee injury, there’s not a lot of gray area there.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That’s bad news. No other way to spin it —</span> <span style="text-transform: uppercase;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">b-a-d</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">, bad.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Unfortunately, injuries seem to be leading producer of “real news” in August.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The other certain bad news usually involves a 3 a.m. phone call to head coach Les Miles and sometimes attracts the attention of the district attorney.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Nothing remotely good usually comes of that, and LSU has been mercifully spared this August.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The injuries never seem to stop at one, either, as LSU lost two key reserves from the front seven in defensive end Isaiah Washington and “buck” linebacker Corey Thompson.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But that, of course, demanded a counterpunch, so it was the cue for the tall-tale section of August news to take flight.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This year it’s Travonte Valentine, a full-grown, 6-foot-3, 340-pound, snorting man-beast of the perfect nose guard LSU needs for defensive coordinator Dave Aranda’s 3-4 alignment.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This is presumably good (hearsay) news with an asterisk.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Valentine’s winding road back to LSU included being cleared academically by the NCAA to play in 2014, only to be turned down by the SEC (perhaps, if you believe the tales, for the rest of the conference’s own safety).</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“We had a difficult time blocking him,” Miles recalled of Valentine’s first, ill-fated hitch at LSU. “Wherever you put him he required a double team, but the double team wasn’t very successful.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It didn’t keep Miles from suspending him the next spring, reportedly for academics, and booting him off the team completely that summer for the ever-popular “violation of team rules.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Two junior colleges later, he’s back, presumably on a short leash that bears anguishing over.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“We’re very optimistic that it’s exactly the right thing to do,” Miles said.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Translation: Every big-time program has to deal with mercenaries from time to time.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So, to recap August, no news is always open to interpretation, good news is suspect (rumor and innuendo) and bad news is always bad.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And then you end up on TMZ.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Let’s call this one good news.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">TMZ normally keeps a breathless America abreast of the latest goings on of your Justin Biebers and various Kardashians, with its closest brush with sports perhaps an interview with Caitlyn Jenner’s hairdresser.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Earlier this week the gossip network caught team star and Heisman Trophy candidate Leonard Fournette on tape, horsing around, shadow boxing with a teammate in the football complex parking lot.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">TMZ labeled the video a brawl on its website, and perhaps an untrained eye could read that into it.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But anybody who’s ever seen a street fight knew it was a sham. Maybe the giveaway was other LSU players walking by and paying it scant heed as the key to their season “duked” it out.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">TMZ printed LSU’s explanation, but did so with all due skepticism.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In today’s PC world, Miles had to address the issue and it came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t a good thing to be risking injury, even if it’s just youthful hijinks.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it speaks well for Fournette’s Heisman campaign.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If your antics attract TMZ, your celebrity is starting to transcend sports.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Otherwise … move along, folks, nothing to see here.</span>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">—</span>
<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress"><span class="s1">twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</span></a>
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