There’s a lot of the late Bo Schembechler in Les Miles, a lot of the legendary Woody Hayes in Urban Meyer.
Saturday night Miles’ LSU team takes on Meyer’s Florida team in a game that not only has Southeastern Conference ramifications but national championship ones as well. To a small few among the more than 95,000 fans inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, this game will be a reminder of the days when Bo’s and Woody’s teams, Michigan and Ohio State, respectively, did battle annually on the last Saturday afternoon of November.
Missing, of course, will be the sub-freezing temperatures which often accompanied the “three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust” slugfests between the Wolverines and Buckeyes.
Saturday night’s Tigers-Gators showdown will be more physical and more wide open than those Michigan-Ohio State games when Bo and Woody ruled their respective roosts. Saturday night, Miles, who could easily pass as “Little Bo” as Schembechler once was known as “Little Woody,” and Meyers, whose adoration of Hayes is evident in the picture he has framed in his home, will clearly be the show.
“Make no mistake about it; this is a fun game to play,” Miles said. “You play in the SEC, you play classic matchups and you better enjoy this one. I can promise you that there will be a lot more energy around our building this week. We’ll look forward to playing well at Florida.”
Then again, no one had more fun preparing his team for a big game than Schembechler did preparing the Wolverines to play the Buckeyes. Once, he brought his good friend from Hollywood, Bo Derek, to practice to inspire his team.
Hayes, of course, was all business, much like Meyer always is.
All of them share one big similarity – their affection for their players.
LSU is 38-6 under Miles and Florida is 35-9 under Meyer headed into Saturday night’s game. In their three previous meetings, LSU has won twice, both in Baton Rouge (21-17 in 2005, 28-24 last season). Florida won 23-10 in 2006 on its way to the national championship.
Schembechler went to Miami of Ohio, where he played for Hayes, who parlayed a successful stint there into the Ohio State head coaching job in 1951. Schembechler later rejoined his former coach at Ohio State as an assistant before returning to Miami as head coach. When Michigan athletic director Don Canham was turned down by a young Penn State coach Joe Paterno, he hired Schembechler in 1969 and Bo delivered immediately, beating Hayes and the Buckeyes 24-12 a year after their national championship season.
Miles, who grew up in Elyria, Ohio, learned from Schembechler, first as a player in the mid 1970s and then as a graduate assistant and offensive line assistant in the 1980s and ‘90s. He then became the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State and tight ends coach with the Dallas Cowboys. Miles returned to Oklahoma State as head coach in 2001 and his Cowboys twice stunned the Sooners, which got him a call from LSU after Nick Saban, the current head coach at Alabama, wandered away from Baton Rouge to coach the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.
Meyer, who grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio, a Buckeye fan, ended up playing football at the University of Cincinnati and eventually made his way to Ohio State as a graduate assistant to Hayes’ successor, Earle Bruce, who was part of Hayes’ coaching staff when the Buckeyes won the 1968 national championship. Also on that staff was former Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz, another Meyer mentor and Hayes champion, and former Colorado and Indiana head coach Bill Mallory, whose son Doug is LSU’s current defensive coordinator.
There’s now a distinct Midwest feeling to this Old South rivalry.