🏈 A random observation on a Sunday afternoon on teams and coaches we've called "processed."

[TerryP]

It's fun. It's good for a laugh now and then. And, that's about it as far as I'm concerned.

I don't disagree with those who think Saban has hastened the departure of a few coaches in his tenure. But, I am hesitate to say he forced coaches out of this conference.

All that said, this line out of the Baton Rouge advocate does a pretty good job describing what is going on within a program to the southwest of Tuscaloosa.

The man who is the root cause of much that afflicts the LSU football program and its anguished fans these days, the Stephen King of Tigertown’s misery, said it best nearly 10 years ago.

When asked, repeatedly, at his Monday news conference two days after Devery Henderson’s “Bluegrass Miracle” catch against Kentucky, Nick Saban finally had enough.

“It’s time,” Saban said grumpily, “to move on.”

Nearly a decade later, it’s actually even better advice than it was back then.

LSU’s bitter 21-0 BCS National Championship Game loss to Saban’s Alabama team is the seemingly eternal nightmare from which the Tiger Nation seems to be unable to shake itself awake.

It has permeated virtually everything people have come to think about LSU athletics as a whole, from football to football recruiting to other sports.

The enduring thing about conspiracy theories is that they can never be completely extinguished — certainly not in the minds of the people who wish to believe in them. To so many Tiger loyalists out there, there simply has to be a reason Miles stuck with Jefferson and left Lee on the bench as the LSU offense sunk deeper into the mud against Alabama. There had to be a pregame conflict, a showdown, or something even more sinister at work, right? People who prefer to believe viral emails and internet chatter will never truly accept flat denials by people like Lee and T-Bob Hebert, two former Tigers who didn’t play in the BCS game and will never play for LSU again and have no reason to engage in a cover up.

First Lee, and now Jefferson, have come out and questioned what Miles and his offensive coaches chose to implement — or more to the point, what they didn’t — in the BCS game. They are legitimate questions asked by men who you would have thought knew better how the Tigers would try to attack Alabama, but were apparently left puzzled like the rest of the world.

The plot thickens.

Enough. It is indeed past time to move on.

Jan. 9 was not the day the LSU football program stumbled off a cliff. It was one stormy day, a day that may require federal disaster relief to put things back together, but still one bad day in what will likely continue to be the golden age of LSU football.

There is a silver lining to the cloud hanging over Tigertown: the promise of next season, and of one particular quarterback.

Phil Steele, who publishes one of the college football preseason magazines, recently predicted on his blog that LSU will be the preseason No. 1 in The Associated Press top 25. He has USC No. 2 and Alabama No. 3.

Part of the reason for the optimism is the belief in the ability of junior quarterback Zach Mettenberger to be the leader — the one and only leader — of LSU’s offense in 2012.

Lee and Jefferson have both said that they expect Mettenberger to lead the Tigers to great things this season.

On that, at least, hopefully everyone who cares about LSU football can agree — and can use that as a rallying point to move forward.

Here's the link; might want to scroll through some of the comments.