ESPN's Mandel elevates LSU to a "King" of college football

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/stewart_mandel/08/06/cfb.mailbag/2.html

Stewart: In a 2007 edition of your Mailbag, you described Georgia as being a regional power, not a national power (I believe you described yourself as coming of age after the Herschel years). At any rate, in your reckoning of the state of college football, is UGA any closer to being a national power?-- Tommy Bean, Black Mountain, N.C.

Well, you certainly can't get much more national attention than being ranked No. 1 in the preseason coaches' poll and Sports Illustrated, so clearly, Georgia is heading in the right direction. As I said in that column, however, national prestige is built up over a long period of time, and only now are the Dawgs starting to seep into the national conscience. If they do in fact win the national title this season, then we can start talking about reevaluating their stature.
This isn't the first e-mail I've received about that "Kings and Barons" column from last year. Many of you have asked whether I would make any changes to the pecking order a year later, and the answer is yes.

I said at the time, "While LSU is clearly a premier program right now, its big-picture tradition does not match those of the 13 kings. However, if the Tigers were to add another national title here in the next couple of years, they may well graduate to that group." Having secured said national title, I think it's safe to say that LSU is unquestionably viewed as one of the kings of college football right now and thus ascends from the rank of baron.

And a paragraph before that, I said, "Tennessee is the lone school [among the kings] that caused any hesitation. The Vols would have been a no-brainer 10 years ago, but they have fallen off the map a bit lately." Indeed, I think it's time to face the reality that a decade has now passed since the glory days of Peyton Manning and Tee Martin and that the Vols really are no longer any different from Auburn, Georgia or any number of others listed among the barons. Therefore, Tennessee is officially bumped from the ranks of the kings.

[MANDEL'S AUGUST, 2007 'KINGS AND BARONS' COLUMN FOLLOWS]

ESPN's Chris Low on LSU as "D-Line U"

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/sec/0-1-64/Just-refer-to-LSU-as--D-Line-U-.html

July 23, 2008 8:58 PM
Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A few more tidbits from Day 1 at the SEC media days:

• LSU center Brett Helms had the perfect answer for how a team could lose a player the caliber of Glenn Dorsey and return the next season with perhaps the best defensive line in the country.
"I was talking to Glenn yesterday, and he was saying this is 'D-Line U.' That's what we call it now," Helms said. "For the past few years with Kyle Williams and Claude Wroten and some of those guys, we just keep reloading here."

The Tigers are loaded up front, all right. Junior defensive tackle Al Woods is projected as a top 10 pick in the 2009 NFL draft by ESPN's Todd McShay [Insider], and Woods isn't even a probable starter heading into the season.

• Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom joked that he won't miss Dorsey.
"If anybody else in this conference had lost Dorsey, they'd be in real trouble," Croom said. "LSU just puts another one in there."

Croom said Dorsey was one of three defensive linemen in his coaching career that he was truly afraid of going into a game.
The other two? Reggie White and Howie Long.
Some pretty heady company.

• Bobby Johnson has earned a dubious distinction at Vanderbilt. Entering his seventh season, Johnson is now the school's longest tenured coach since George MacIntyre, who coached the Commodores' last bowl team in 1982.
Johnson has guided the Commodores to 15 wins in the last three seasons, their best three-season win total since 1992-94.

"I remember in my first press conference, I think the very first day I was at Vanderbilt, some guy said, 'How long do you think you got before they fire you?' " Johnson recounted. "Really, he did. I said, 'I don't know.'

"The thing is that our coaching staff has invested a lot into this program. They've worked extremely hard. We want to see it be successful. We're hoping we can get it done. I think we made strides toward that. I think we were extremely close last year. A couple games go either way, and we're in a bowl."

The reality is that Vanderbilt may struggle this season when you look at everybody the Commodores lost, but 2009 could finally be the year they break their bowl drought.