With the LSU-North Carolina game coming this Saturday, here’s what I think a Les Miles pregame speech would sound like. (Note: lines with stars around them are actual Miles quotes)
Les Miles: Men. I can tell you some good news today on the home front. Manny Miles has learned to hit a slider. This is big news, as certainly the want has always been there to be able to hit one, but the execution was lacking.
Uh, but back to what we have at hand. Today, we enter a new season. A new year to, uh, start off strong and finish weak, as certainly we are capable of doing. But in order to win, we have to compete, and we have to compete at a high level. Remember, **the measure of this season will not be made on what we’ve done, but what we’re about to do.**
As I’m sure you are all well aware of, my ass is on fire. In fact, Mr. Alleva sent me a tweet today. You know what that tweet said?
Gary Crowton: Wait, you mean like that Tweety Bird?
LM: Well, certainly Tweety is a great character. Very capable of running an offense. But I’m talking about Twitter, Gary, the social media network.
Now, Mr. Alleva twitted.
Patrick Peterson: Tweeted, coach.
LM: Certainly. He tweeted, **Les, win or hit I-10. Lol C U 2nite.
Don’t mess up.** I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it seems bad.
**For all the right reasons, we encourage to be a great team, encourage playing four quarters of quality football and encourage to improve.**
Seeing how **summers generally are productive,** I feel I have truly instilled that lesson in this team. Now, during the offseason we have learned a lot, not only as a team but as a coaching staff.
Certainly we have learned the difference between calling a timeout and a want to call a timeout.
We also finally learned exactly what a Tar Heel is. Now, when we signed the contract to play these Heels, **there was great interest there as soon as that interest was mutual.** But we had no idea what a Tar Heel was. So in honor of these new “Super
Conferences,” we got together a team “Super Committee” composed of Patrick Peterson, Jordan Jefferson, Terrence Toliver and Josh Jasper.
Now, Toliver had a hand that caused him to drop out of this committee. So we were left with the other three.
We chose these competitors because they all have first and last names that start with the same letter, and our capable coaching staff felt that is the best way to choose such a committee. Now,
PP, tell them what you have found.
PP: Well, Coach, first we Googled whether or not I could beat a Tar Heel in a race. Apparently, it’s not an actual animal. No results came up. So we resorted to Wikipedia. It’s just a nickname for a person from North Carolina. So we decided that since Patrick Peterson is greater than anyone from North Carolina, there is no way I would lose to a Tar Heel in a battle.
Once again, I win.
LM: Great job, PP. Now, while that nickname is just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, **I can tell you that we’ve always wanted to honor our best opponents with our greatest effort, and certainly that’s the intent this week.**
But here’s what is more important.
Tonight, we need to finish first in the contest. **We’d like to win, and certainly that’s what we will pursue.** While certainly second is a good place to finish, and there may be a want to finish there tonight, we need to win this one for Papa Miles.
Now let’s go out there and beat those Tweety Heels. I mean, Tar Heels. Damn it, Gary, now you have me thinking about that adorable little cartoon character.
GC: Yeah, when all else fails, blame it on me.
—-
Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]
Miles gives team pregame speech
September 2, 2010