If you didn't know any better, you'd think Les Miles had nothing to do with quarterback Jordan Jefferson's baffling, ill-fated decision to attempt to spike the ball with one second on the clock at the end of LSU's 25-23 loss at Ole Miss, thus ending the Tigers' comeback bid without a shot at a winning field goal or a throw into the end zone. Miles himself, after all, said after the game: "I do not know who told him to clock it. ... You cannot clock that ball. I don't know that that call was ever made." From that, we can assume the sophomore quarterback took it upon himself, in the heat of the moment, to take the only action in that situation that essentially assured a Tiger loss.

Thanks to a Baton Rouge television station, however, we do know better:

That clip compounds the already searing indictment of LSU's horrendous clock management on the game-winning drive: On top of allowing 16 precious seconds to tick away before heaving up a desperate fourth-down pass with only nine seconds left, and apparently failing to have any plan for getting the field goal team onto the field or getting off a throw into the end zone when that pass was completed, Miles a) Vigorously signaled for his quarterback to throw the team's only remaining chance to win into the turf, and b) Proceeded to either forget what he was thinking in that crucial moment or outright lie about it, effectively making his sophomore quarterback the scapegoat for the boneheaded decision.

It's not the first time Miles has lost his head in the heat of a crucial moment or seemed to lose track of the clock at the end of a game. It was bound to burn a man whose brain seems to lie entirely below his sternum eventually. But to throw your own quarterback to the wolves -- intentionally or unintentionally, since it's not clear at all Miles was technically conscious when he was frantically instructing his team to spike the ball -- that's hardly the stuff of a $4 million man.

- - -
Hat tip: Sports By Brooks.

Charlie Weis doesn't want to talk about it. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick doesn't want to talk about it. Even the most Irish-centric newspapers, having already called for Weis' dismissal, don't have anything left to say except to sympathize with the seniors and open the bidding on the future. Weis was already so fired before Saturday's coffin-slamming loss at the hands of UConn, there's nothing left but waiting for the other shoe to fall after next week's season finale at Stanford.

The eerie calm reminds me of waiting for a devastating hurricane to come ashore after all the preparations have been made: The windows are boarded up, the pantry is full of supplies, the skies have taken on a greenish-gray hue, the wind is blowing mockingly and everyone is sitting on the porch, laughing nervously until the lights go out and everything begins to rock and howl in the throes of the storm. Weis had the same kind of chuckle amid the grim atmosphere at his regular Sunday press conference, where he insisted he planned to spend what will surely be his final week as Notre Dame's coach focusing on Stanford, trying to enjoy Thanksgiving with his family and refusing to consider resignation. Sometime after that, next Sunday or Monday, he'll be handed his walking papers and the epic storm of the '09 Notre Dame coaching search will land with full force.

I've joked before about having a "Charlie Weis is Fired" post in the can like the New York Times' pre-meditated obituaries of famous people, ready to toss up at a moment's notice when the time comes. The coming week, though, is going to amount to essentially the same thing, to the extent that all that will be left to say when the official word comes is "There it is." Stay tuned, kids, and make sure the pets are inside.

Snap judgments on Saturday's best.

Teachers' Pet(s): Jeremiah Masoli and Nick Foles. Oregon and Arizona's rocket-armed quarterbacks put on a laser light show in the 44-41, double-overtime game of the week to reaffirm the Ducks as Pac-10 frontrunners. Masoli was responsible for all six of Oregon's touchdowns -- three passing, three rushing -- and finished with 345 total yards. Foles kept pace nicely with 314 passing yards and four touchdowns that earned the Wildcats the respect of an exhausted but rapt nation. (You were rapt, right, Harris Poll voters?)

Most School Spirit: While the vultures were circling the opposing sideline, it got a little misty as longtime UConn coach Randy Edsall struggled to hold it together while declaring the Huskies' overtime win at Notre Dame -- their first after a series of razor-thin, disappointing losses since cornerback Jasper Howard was murdered last month -- the biggest victory in school history.

Most Unlikely Couple: Charlie Weis and the Cleveland Browns? Still no word this morning on the fate of Notre Dame's top dog, but if the Irish brass are really waiting for the Stanford game to pass judgment ... well, despite the Cardinal's troubles Saturday at Cal, we can't imagine them not dispatching the Domers with ease next week in Palo Alto.

Most Creative: Mike Locksley. New Mexico's punch-happy head coach finally has one in the W column, but only after multiple turnovers, five lead changes and a field goal with 12 seconds remaining to put away equally hapless Colorado State. Honorable mention: UTEP, which once again found a way to lose to a one of C-USA's irredeemable bottom dwellers -- in this case, Rice, which took out the Miners 30-29 despite passing for just 55 yards with a long gain of 17 for the game. Our sincere congratulations to the Owls on their two-game win streak after an 0-9 start.

Mister Personality: Rick Neuheisel. It's probably not how he envisioned his team would get there, and it's certainly later than UCLA partisans were hoping, but the Bruins are bowl-eligible after extending Arizona State's puzzling losing streak to five games. (A nice, round number to correspond to the five fumbles the Devils coughed up to the Bruins in a 23-13 loss, ending their own bowl hopes.)

Read More »

Box Scorin' looks at weird, wild and prolific numbers from Saturday's action.

• Nevada piled up 574 yards on 61 carries in a 63-20 obliteration of New Mexico State, the highest single-game rushing total for any team this season, and became the first team in Division I-A history to produce three different 1,000-yard rushers in the same year, Vai Taua, Colin Kaepernick and Luke Lippincott. The Wolf Pack now own the top four single-game rushing performances of the year and lead the nation in rushing average by almost 60 yards per game over No. 2 Georgia Tech; they're 24 yards per game ahead of the best average of the decade (Nebraska in 2000). The Pack's 7.8 yards per carry for the season is also on pace to obliterate the best number of the decade (6.7 per carry by West Virginia in 2006) by more than a full yard.

On a related note, Nevada's eighth straight win represents its best streak in 18 years, which goes on the line Friday night at undefeated Boise State. Winner takes the WAC championship.

• Beleaguered Syracuse quarterback Greg Paulus completed 13 of 16 passes for 142 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions in his final home game, a 31-13 romp over Rutgers for Doug Marrone's first Big East win as the Orange's head coach.

• Texas Tech rang up 549 total yards in its 41-13 win over Oklahoma, almost 200 yards more than OU has allowed in any other game this year and one yard shy of the highest single-game total against the Sooners in Bob Stoops' 11-year tenure (Kansas State hit 550 last October). It was also the first time an OU defense under Stoops allowed 40 points to a team ranked outside of the top 12 at kickoff.

• Houston scored touchdowns on eight of its first nine possessions, seven of them on drives covering at least 65 yards, in a 55-14 win over lame-duck Memphis. UH quarterback Case Keenum was his typically prolific self with 405 yards passing, five touchdowns and no interceptions, and the Cougars rolled up 689 total yards despite touching the ball only once (and punting) in the fourth quarter. Nine different Houston receivers had at least three receptions for the game.

Read More »

South Florida coach Jim Leavitt looked a little worse for wear following his team's 34-22 win over Louisville Saturday, but the St. Petersburg Times reports those are the good kind of facial scars:

Asked about the injury, Leavitt deadpanned that he "fell in the locker room," but his players revealed a familiar Leavitt halftime motivation: headbutting players while they still have their helmets on.

"He was fired up. He grabbed somebody -- I think it was (walk-on linebacker ) LaDre Watkins," safety Nate Allen said. "He headbutted him and fell backwards. I couldn't help but laugh, because that's the best one I've seen. ... We were fired up about that one."

Maybe Leavitt should get together with former opponent and fellow self-assailant Owen Schmitt to compare notes.

Oregon 44, Arizona 41 (Overtime). I suspect that if you'd given Arizona the broad script of this game, the Wildcats probably would have taken it. The Ducks passed more than they ran, with Jeremiah Masoli's somewhat unpredictable arm launching a career-high 45 attempts; they went six straight possessions in the second and third quarters with no points and only a single first down; and 'Zona ripped off 17 unanswered points over the same span for a double-digit lead early in the fourth quarter. Under most circumstances, that's a winning script.

Whatever remained of the 'one-dimensional' charge against Masoli, though, flitted harmlessly away on the Ducks' two fourth quarter touchdown drives, on which he was 12-for-18 for 111 yards, converted a pair of third-down runs and connected on a do-or-die pass to move the sticks on fourth down just two plays before drilling the tying touchdown to Ed Dickson with six seconds on the clock. In overtime, he lobbed his third touchdown pass under pressure in the first frame and set up his own number on the winning run by firing a 23-yard strike to Dickson on the first snap of the second. Roughly half of Masoli's 345 total yards came in the fourth quarter and in overtime, and to all the other arrows in quiver, you can now add "clutch" after the first fourth quarter comeback of the season.

Still, that won't do much for him if it doesn't carry over in two weeks, when the Ducks get Oregon State in Eugene for the de facto, winner-take-all Pac-10 Championship game for an automatic trip to the Rose Bowl, one of the most improbable sentences typed in this or any other season. Even in their cozy, raucous home lair, the Ducks are guaranteed of nothing in the Civil War, but there's no questioning their resiliency after a night like this: Arizona was out with daggers to take the leap forward into the conference's elite, and plenty of would-be contenders -- UCLA in 2005, Cal in '06, Oregon itself in '07 -- have bitten the dust in Tucson against lesser Wildcat outfits than this one under Mike Stoops' watch. The Ducks come out licking some wounds in their secondary after being stung for 311 yards and four touchdowns by 'Zona quarterback Nick Foles, but this seemed like the kind of game only a Rose Bowl-worthy team comes out of at all.

California 34, Stanford 28. Cal running back Shane Vereen may never be mistaken for the spectacular blazer he replaced in the Bears' backfield, Jahvid Best, or the thundering Mack truck on the opposite sideline tonight, Toby Gerhart, and may never approach the broad star power of either. But Vereen shouldered as many carries against the Cardinal (42) as any back in the country has endured in any game this season, for 193 yards and three touchdowns en route to leading the Bears to their biggest win of the season over their most hated rival. At minimum, that buys him 24 hours of undisturbed sleep and at least one deep-tissue massage from a comely student trainer.

It ought to buy Cal a little more respect, too, for demonstrating more resiliency than the Bears have shown in years -- for a team with a reputation for extended collapses (2007) and random losses at the wrong time, the Bears have managed to rally this year first from back-to-back blowouts at the hands of USC and Oregon with three wins in a row, and now from another tough home loss against Oregon State (including the frightening injury that sidelined Best) to pick up back-to-back big wins over Arizona and now Stanford, breaking three-game winning streaks in both cases. That may not amount to hill of beans in this crazy mixed-up league as far as the final standings or bowl lineups go, but its a lot better than almost anyone would have guessed two weeks ago.

Scroll down or click here to join the Doc's game day live blog, covering every game, all day long.

Harvard 14, Yale 10. When New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick went with the numbers instead of the conventional wisdom by going for it on fourth down with the lead and the ball in his own territory last Sunday in his team's eventual loss to Indianapolis, it led to a fascinating round of debate over probabilities, "gut feelings" and how to think about risk-taking in more unorthodox, effective ways.

I think it's safe to say Yale coach Tom Williams' ill-fated fourth down gamble in the Bulldogs' loss to Harvard today won't be inspiring any of those debates (emphasis added):

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP)—Yale's first-year coach Tom Williams says he's ready to take responsibility for the Bulldogs' eighth loss in the last nine games to rival Harvard.

Yale was ahead 10-7 Saturday with just 2:25 left when it failed to convert a fake punt on fourth-and-22 from its 26, and wound up losing 14-10.

"The whole idea was to keep our foot on the pedal, and not play scared," said Williams in trying to explain the call. "If anyone is looking for somebody to blame, blame this guy right here."

Presumably, Williams was referring to himself, and not some poor freshie doomed to be forced to cite a Euclidian proposition while being trimmed by would-be initiates of Skull & Bones. (Which would be fine if he didn't have to rely on townies for his ride back into New Haven.)

Harvard turned the fake -- a 15-yard run by safety John Powers -- into the go-ahead points less than a minute later, on a 32-yard touchdown pass from the very Harvardly-named Collier Winters to Chris Lorditch, which effectively shut the door on Yale and lifted the Crimson to 7-3 for the season. And still, I'm not sure that it's any crazier than the fourth-and-10 fake from his own 15 that Florida coach Urban Meyer busted out with his team trailing against Arkansas in the 2006 SEC Championship game -- except that play worked for a first down and led to a touchdown that put the Gators on top for good en route to the national championship. Like they say: If it works, you're a genius. (And in this case, a filthy rich genius. It was worth a shot, Coach Tom.)

Scroll down or click here to join the Doc's game day live blog, covering every game, all day long.

Ole Miss 25, LSU 23. It's generally bad form to undermine a tight, dramatic game by dwelling on a mistake in the closing seconds, but occasionally the comedy of errors is too staggering to ignore. So LSU coach Les Miles, grab your $3.75 million salary and step right up for the full-frontal clock management gaffe of the year, as narrated by CBS Sports' Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson:

Miles has made his reputation as one of the SEC's elite coaches by being aggressive, flying by the seat of his pants and occasionally flouting conventional clock management, and what's ironic about the closing flub in Oxford is that he was on his way to confirming that reputation. Down 25-17 with three-and-a-half minutes to play, LSU drove for a touchdown to pull within 25-23 with 1:23 on the clock, and recovered an onside kick to give itself a chance to win in the final minute. After hitting a 26-yard pass from Jordan Jefferson to Brandon LaFell to move within range of the winning field goal, it looked like a miracle in the works.

Instead, the Tigers went backwards on consecutive plays, first on a sack for a loss of nine yards (followed by LSU's second timeout) that knocked them out of field goal range, and then on a third down screen pass for a loss of seven that backed LSU into a desperate, 4th-and-26 hole. And instead of following Clock Management 101 by calling their final timeout immediately after the third down play ended in-bounds, though, the Tigers let 16 seconds tick off before finally expending the last TO with only nine seconds and no timeouts remaining to get off the fourth down play and any other snaps that followed it.

So when Jefferson improbably completed a 42-yard pass to Terance Tolliver at the Ole Miss six on fourth-and-forever as the clock ticked down to one second, LSU had two options: a) Rush the field goal team (which should have been waiting on the sideline for just this situation) on for a winning attempt before the officials were able to move the chains, set the ball and begin the clock again; or b) With such little time to get a new 11 men on and the current 11 men off, hurry the offense up to the line to take a final shot into the end zone. It had to be kick or throw into the end zone, and the decision had to made pronto -- in fact, it should have already been made, during the timeout preceding the fourth down heave. Clock Management 101, Section 2: With almost no time and no timeouts, you must have two plays ready in the if the first play doesn't score.

The one option the Tigers definitely did not have at their disposal was spiking the ball to stop the clock: With only one second left, once Jefferson took the snap and put the ball into the turf, there would be no time left to kill.

Naturally, Jefferson and the offense scurry to the line, looking at each other and to their sideline in confusion as the officials set the ball, start the clock and ... end it. Jefferson inexplicably attempted to spike the ball, anyway, but the Tigers didn't even get off the snap before the clock hit all-zeroes.

Read More »

UConn 33, Notre Dame 30 (Overtime). That's it. Don the hoods, light the fires, lead Charlie Weis down the long, spiral stairway to the dungeon beneath the Golden Dome and do what must be done. Might as well get on with it.

Athletic director Jack Swarbrick said this week there would be no decision on Weis' fate as Notre Dame head coach until after the Irish's season finale next week at Stanford, but it seems almost inhumane to leave a man bracing for the inevitable blow, as Weis will be if the situation remains "undecided" through the coming seven days.

Obviously, the thing is decided now, if it wasn't already: This loss means ND has dropped at least five games in three consecutive seasons for the first time in more than 20 years, and has no chance to finish in the final polls. The best-case postseason scenario, a consolation trip to the Gator Bowl, is out of the question, leaving another unsatisfying, third-tier bowl bid at best. Navy has two wins in South Bend in three years after a record 47-year drought in the series. Irish seniors went out in their final home game with a loss to an unranked, sub-.500 Big East also-ran, just as last year's seniors went out with a humiliating loss to Syracuse that initially unleashed the anti-Weis jackals. Weis has the worst winning percentage in Notre Dame Stadium of any Irish coach since 1975 -- "even worse than Gerry Faust," as the sympathetic NBC commentators noted immediately after the game, just before reluctantly agreeing on-air that Weis must be finished for falling woefully short of expectations with every conceivable advantage this year.

It's over; the only question is whether Swarbrick will wait until after the pointless finale to drop the ax, as promised, or go ahead and be done with it over the next two or three days.

When he was hired in December 2004, Weis assumed Tyrone Wilingham's chair with the swagger that would turn critics against him in short order when he composed his own epitaph: "You are what you are folks, and right now, you're a 6-5 football team. That's not good enough for you, and it's certainly not good enough for me." Weis had it all this year: An extremely experienced, talented team built entirely from his own highly-ranked recruiting classes, reared entirely in his program and staring down an usually favorable schedule that seemed to scream "10 wins." Instead, the Irish are a 6-5 football team for the second year in a row, headed for 6-6, and that's certainly not going to be good enough to keep Weis around into December. At the latest. It's been real, coach.