LSU coach Les Miles made a gutsy call as the Tigers beat Auburn when Matt Flynn threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to Demetrius Byrd with :01 left. AP

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We could literally go on like this for days, people, and we'd just keep going in circles. The only way to truly gauge the respective conferences is when their teams play each other, usually either early in the season or in the bowls, and even then, those results invariably come with asterisks.

Case in point:

What does Michigan have to do to get the respect (I feel) it deserves? I see five, two-loss teams ranked ahead of Michigan, and I just don't get it. Michigan lost both games at home, which is bad, but both losses were the first two games, and they are undefeated after that, having beaten teams that were ranked at least some time during the year (Penn State, Purdue and Illinois).
--Scott, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Is it just coincidence that Michigan is playing "amazing" football now that they have gotten into their Big Ten schedule? The Big Ten is as bad as it gets this year, but Michigan is getting respect by beating up on other weak teams.
--Jeff, Boise, Idaho

Two different people, same set of facts. Jeff views Michigan's Appalachian State and Oregon debacles as Exhibit A in the case against the Big Ten, while Scott apparently believes they've become irrelevant specifically because the Wolverines have been so successful in Big Ten play.

So which is it?

When it comes to the various conference loyalists versus critics, it seems the truth is often whatever you want to make it. Just ask Scott and Jeff, or those two e-mailers earlier.

For the love of humanity -- and more importantly, my sanity -- can we please move on to some other topics?

Why aren't we hearing more about the blown call on the "fair catch" punt-return touchdown fiasco during the UConn vs. Louisville game? And what's this with Steve Kragthorpe saying "it was a factor, but not the only factor." Shouldn't the Cardinals be whining and threatening violence against the officials? Possibly pursuing legal action? Sheesh! The refs aren't even under police-protection yet! Come on, Louisville, where's the passion?
--Concerned Sooner, Norman, Okla.

Spoken like a person who's felt the wrath of negligent officiating (Oklahoma-Oregon last year). But Kragthorpe is 100 percent correct. Just as in that game, the officials' mistake -- while atrocious -- did not determine the outcome of the game. In fact, reading the various accounts of it the past few days (including the news that Mike Tranghese called Kragthorpe to apologize), you would never have guessed that the play occurred at the 11:35 mark of the third quarter.

I bet some of you are shocked to read that now. With responses like the one above, you might get the mistaken impression that the UConn guy waved his hand, caught the ball, ran for the touchdown and then ran straight to the locker room to shower. But no, that play only made the score 7-7. Over the 27-plus minutes that followed, the Cardinals actually went up 17-7, only to have the Huskies come back and win on two fourth-quarter touchdowns (and no, neither of them came on a punt return).

I salute Kragthorpe for such a lucid reaction. (Quite the opposite of the one I witnessed live 24 hours earlier, with USF's Jim Leavitt going off on an unsolicited rant about the replay officials overturning his team's blatantly illegal fumble return.) He's correct -- that blown call did play a factor in the Cardinals' loss. But so, too, did a UConn defense that held Brian Brohm to a season-low 228 yards and picked him off three times, and the Louisville defense's inability to protect a 10-point fourth-quarter lead. I would compare the punt return to Larry David's decision to hang up on his terror-stricken wife in favor of the TiVo guy -- obviously, that's the part of the story that's going to jump out at you most when he shows up at your house during dinner, but, seeing as it's Larry, there was inevitably a whole lot of other stuff, too, that led to Cheryl's decision.

The sports media seems to be deriding Les Miles' decision to go for a touchdown at the end of the Auburn game, insisting it was a bad call. If Steve Spurrier or Pete Carroll had called that same play, do you think they would have been met with the same scrutiny?
--Scott, Baton Rouge, La.

Probably not -- but that's because those two gentlemen have national championship rings on their fingers, while Miles does not. These sorts of things tend to earn you some leeway.

Besides, I don't think it's the "call" itself that people are chiding. You've got a timeout in your pocket and you want to take a shot at the end zone? That's fine by me. What made it seem so reckless, however, was the way LSU appeared to be oblivious to just how little time was left on the clock, and in turn, how dangerously close it came to blowing it. The touchdown was caught with one second left. One second! Think about that. If Matt Flynn had so much as pumped faked, or if the receiver, Demetrius Byrd had bobbled it first, or if the defender had tipped it in the air, and the pass fell incomplete? Game over. (Yes, I know replays show he caught it at :03, but you can't assume that would have automatically been fixed).

While the whole sequence could easily have blown up in Miles' face, personally, I dug the call. Much more so than the fifth fourth-down attempt against Florida, which really would have lost the game if it failed (whereas if this pass fell incomplete, assuming it didn't take too long, they still get to kick the game-winning field goal). I've said it before and I'll say it again: The best college coaches play to win, not play-not-to-lose like they do in the pros. That's a characteristic Miles obviously shares with Spurrier and Carroll. I do wonder, however, whether he's starting to scare away dream employer Michigan. A couple doses of Miles could cause a rash of coronaries among a fan base long-since conditioned to the slightly-more sedated Lloyd Carr.

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