… is Pat Forde on Les Miles after LSU’s huge, colossal, landscape changing victory over Oregon. Let’s go to the tape:
Tumult and trouble don’t touch The Hat. They bounce off him, like he has some sort of invisible force field protecting him.
You can take away LSU coach Les Miles’ starting quarterback after a bar brawl. You can take away one of his most dangerous play makers after an NCAA violation. You can take away his offensive coordinator after being stricken by Parkinson’s. You can take away three defensive players chosen in the first 87 picks of the 2011 NFL draft.
It won’t matter. The madcap Miles will make sense of the chaos.
You can take away Forde’s pen. You can take away his metaphors. You can take away the most skilled research staff in the history of sports writing. But it won’t matter. Forde will still find a way to breathless deify the object of his ardour.
Forde doesn’t stop there either. After all but proclaiming Miles the Jesus of college football coaching, he lays it on even thicker:
When the sun shines too long — that’s the time to worry about Les. When storm clouds are gathering — Jordan Jefferson arrested on a felony battery charge, receiver Russell Shepard suspended by the NCAA, assistant Steve Kragthorpe relinquishing play-calling duties, Oregon’s up-tempo offense looming — that’s when he’s at his best.
Awesome. Relatedly, I’m pretty sure Miles didn’t bother returning to Baton Rouge on the team plane. Rather, he tamed the whole space-time continuum thing and teleported himself back along. Word has it, he arrived before the game film that he emailed to himself.
A question: where was Miles during Hurricane Irene? An observation: Forde better hope Miles doesn’t turn around too suddenly; he’ll break Forde’s neck.
What’s particularly great about this is it’s game 1 of the season. We don’t know if Oregon just hasn’t gotten their stuff together; if their not top 25 material; if LSU is really the best team in the country; if LSU will end up 1-10; if it’s just a matchup issue for Oregon; anything. No matter for Forde though, who’s clearly mastered the art of elevating his article’s object to the point of deity.
This sort of writing has become all to common, to be honest. Think of any star and it’s a guarantee that in addition to all the vanquished foes in their wake will be a trail of sports articles like this telling us how gravity-defyingly great they are.
Best of all, it’s week 1. We’ve got games into December including league championships, bowl games and BCS championship games. There will be a lot more gods defined before it’s over.