For the longest time, LSU football fans had a chip on their shoulder. Many believed their beloved Fighting Tigers warranted more attention from the national sports media than they actually received. Even in 2003, when the Bayou Bengals won the BCS Championship, they felt jilted because they were forced to share the national spotlight with Southern California, who was declared equally deserving of the title “National Champion” by many in the national press.

Since Les Miles became the head football coach at LSU in 2005, however, it seems like he and the program have garnered more attention than Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan combined. Right off the bat, with the “help” of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Miles’ team received more coverage in just a few months than his Cowboys ever did during his tenure at Oklahoma State.

At the end of his second season, Miles’ team regained the limelight after slaughtering Notre Dame and pretty boy Brady Quinn in the Sugar Bowl and finishing fourth in the national polls. A few months later, LSU was all the rage when four Tigers were picked in the first round of the NFL draft, including Jamarcus Russell, who became only the second player in LSU history to be picked first overall.

But even before the draft, everyone was buzzing about LSU football when Alabama hired Nick Saban. Even pedestrian college football fans looked forward to November 3, the day the Tigers played the Crimson Tide. More avid fans, meanwhile, anticipated the showdown like the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Then there were the games this year. With the exceptions of Louisiana Tech and Ole Miss, LSU didn’t come close to blowing anybody out after September. In fact, a number of bar and restaurant managers around town told me game day business was measurably down this season in comparison to recent years. Maybe it’s because, in the past, fans were accustomed to frequenting those establishments after leaving Tiger Stadium midway through the third quarter with a 30-point lead. It’s just a thought.

When you consider LSU’s two triple-overtime losses, the five fourth-down conversions in the come-from-behind win against Florida, and Demetrius Byrd’s second-to-last-second touchdown catch against Auburn, it’s little wonder why they earned the nickname “cardiac cats.” When you also consider that Louisiana is a constant leader in heart disease, all the heart-stopping football games this season have probably done wonders for local cardiologists.

Hell, I only went to one game this year – Auburn. I had chest pains at the end, and I’m in decent shape. No wonder the geezer in front of me was popping nitroglycerin tablets for his angina. (I’m kidding. I just like the word “angina.”)

All the down-to-the-wire finishes, along with a few spectacular trick plays, ensured that, week in and week out, LSU got the “tiger’s share” of coverage on ESPN’s SportsCenter. Then, just when you thought we couldn’t hog the national sports spotlight anymore, the whole coaching job hubbub erupted on the morning of the Southeastern Conference Championship game in Atlanta.

It all started for me when I saw a crawl on WBRZ during the ACC Championship game. It stated their sports director had confirmed with LSU Athletic Director Skip Bertman that all parties involved had agreed in principle to a new contract and that Les Miles would remain as the head coach next year.

When I checked the web, though, I couldn’t believe my eyes. WAFB’s website stated exactly the opposite. They were echoing Kirk Herbstreit’s breaking story on ESPN.com that not only would Miles be the next Michigan head coach but he had also already picked Georgia Tech’s John Tenuta to be his defensive coordinator in Ann Arbor.

Why would such a reputable source like ESPN go so far as to say something so specific if it weren’t true? Will he stay or will he go? Who’s got the right story? The blatant contradiction created a conundrum that could have made my head explode. Thank goodness it was only a brief one.

That’s because we soon learned that Miles would hold an unprecedented press conference only a couple of hours before kickoff against Tennessee. I thought, “Well, we’ll have the real story in about twenty minutes.” I was wrong.

In probably the shortest press conference in the history of press conferences, Miles made a brief, but somewhat nebulous, statement, sans script. Maybe he should have used one, because immediately, media types began analyzing his words.

Notably absent was a definitive statement that he would still be the coach at LSU next season. It wasn’t until a few hours later that word began to spread that Miles, after further questioning, had confirmed he would still be donning the purple and gold – not the blue and maize – next year.

Coach Miles, on behalf of Tiger fans, I apologize for parsing your words like a political speech. If we seem a little jaded with regard to promises by football coaches and not taking vows at face value, please try to understand. We, along with innumerable college football fans around the country, have had our trust violated by ambitious, unscrupulous men more often than Meredith Baxter Birney on Lifetime.

Later that day, after watching LSU beat Tennessee and while Tiger fans basked in the glow of an SEC title, some Tiger fans were sober enough to comprehend the magnitude of the events that were to follow that evening. For the first time in history, number one and number two in the country lost on the last day of the football season. Top-ranked Missouri lost to Oklahoma in the Big XII title game, and number two West Virginia got beat in Morgantown by Pittsburgh. A week earlier, Herbstreit deemed that upset impossible. Herbie was 0-for-2 that day.

Suddenly, talk about LSU catapulting from number seven in the BCS to number two, and into a spot in the BCS National Championship Game, became the top sports story in the country. Within mere hours, LSU went from being a coachless team with absolutely no shot at another National Championship to being on the verge of taking on The Ohio State University in the BCS title game with Les Miles on the sideline. Drama seems to follow the man like a shadow.

So now it’s official. Les Miles’ team will take on Jim Tressel’s team on January 7 in the Louisiana Superdome for the National Championship. It’ll be “The Hat” versus “The Vest.” (Sounds like a Monopoly^®game, huh?) A self-proclaimed Michigan man will get to take on Big Blue’s über-archrival for all the marbles. In other words, it’s a big freaking game, and once again, LSU has taken its rightful place at the center of the college football universe.

By the way, if you plan on going to New Orleans for the game, make sure you don’t contribute to the city’s economy beyond your intent. When that little dude bets you $20 that he can tell you where you got your shoes, don’t take the bait. Here’s a news flash: You got them on your feet.

However, if you see Herbstreit in the French Quarter, don’t share that “inside information from your reliable source.” Remember, he’s a Buckeye…a frequently wrong Buckeye. Plus, he’ll probably break a story about it on ESPN.com by the next morning.