Here's DandyDon's report on Les Miles' first radio talk show; the questions, the answers and the reactions:
Last night I listened to Coach Les Miles' first weekly radio talk show of the season with great interest. Jim Hawthorne, the host of the hour long show, welcomed Coach Miles to LSU and Louisiana as did all the callers. Coach Miles said that he and his family are very comfortable living in Louisiana and he is happy to be the head coach at LSU. He said that the team has made great progress and said that the defense was a little ahead of the offense at this time, but as a rule it takes the offense a little longer than the defense to adopt to a new system. Coach Miles said that he was saddened by the loss of Alley Broussard for the season and the loss of E.J. Kuale for part of the season.

When asked about the quarterback situation, Coach Miles said that all three are very capable of doing a great job, but he stopped short of naming a starter. Miles did say that Ryan Perrilloux was at a disadvantage because he is a true freshman, but said that Perrilloux has great talent. Hawthorne asked about the 2005 schedule with most of the harder games at home. Miles said this is an advantage, but he is only worried about North Texas at this time. The first caller of the night was Mr. X from New Orleans who asked the coach how far away the team was from being ready to play and the coach's answer was 10 days. Tom, the second caller of the night, asked Miles about special teams. Miles answered that Patrick Fisher has done a good job punting in Fall workouts and has good hang time on his punts. He also said Chris Jackson was doing a good job and that both punters might play. Coach Miles said that Ryan Gaudet has been very accurate making about 80 percent of his field goals attempted in Fall practice. Miles also said that Gaudet and Jackson have been doing a good job on kick offs. Miles singled out Skyler Green as the leading punt and kick return person and also said that Shyrone Carey was doing a good job.

Coach Miles said the defense is a very physical and aggressive defense that practices very hard every practice. When asked who would replace E.J. Kuale, the coach said Ali Highsmith and Jason Spadoni would both play a lot. Frank asked about the style of offense LSU would use and Miles said the team would use the deep pass some to loosen up the opposing team's defense and that the offense would take advantage of whatever the defense allows. Brad asked about the play of Claude Wroten, Kyle Williams and Andrew Whitworth and the coaches reply was that all three are great people with great character and a credit to LSU. One caller asked what players Coach Miles expects to have breakout seasons and Mile's reply was Joseph Addai, Justin Vincent and Shyrone Carey. Coach Miles had high words of praise for Justin Vincent. He also said there is a good chence that Steven Korte will receive some playing time as a true freshmen.

One caller asked the first year coach his biggest surprise since arriving at LSU and his answer was the passion that LSU fans have for LSU football. One caller asked about the quarterbacks being able to read defensives and about the speed of the game. Miles answer was that the LSU quarterbacks practice against the speedy LSU defense each day and he believes his team will be ready for the opposing teams' speed. One caller asked the coach if he was ready for LSU fighting Tiger football and the coach's answer was that he has been waiting for the day ever since arriving at LSU. One caller asked how many points he would like for his team to score each game and how many points he would he like for team to allow. The coach sort of laughed and said that he would like to score in the 40-point range and allow around 17 points per game. Coach Miles said the team would set goals Sunday at a team meeting.

A total of 17 callers questioned the coach and that is about double the number of callers that would be able to get in when Saban was at LSU. Saban went much into much more detail with his answers. The above information is not "word to word" quotations of what the coach said but is pretty close.

The LSU football team did not practice Wednesday and will return to practice today at 3:30. I was able to get a little information on Tuesday night's scrimmage that was a little late, but better late than never. The scrimmage lasted for three hours and was not a full-contact scrimmage. Players were not taken to the ground when tackled. The quarterbacks did not look very good as a group. Russell threw a bullet to a wide open Dwayne Bowe that hit the ground about three feet short. Russell over threw Kevin Steltz wide open about 10 yards down field. Russell did throw a few good passes, according to my information, but was inconsistent. Matt Flynn threw one touchdown pass to Bennie Brazell but completed far less than 50 percent of his passes. Flynn's biggest asset was his ability to scramble. Ryan Perrilloux worked only with the third team. He missed a couple of open receivers and had a few passes dropped. My source said that when Perrilloux came on the field he had a presence and was very obviously a player of the future. Skyler Green looked very good on punt returns as did Shyrone Carey. On kickoffs, the Tigers used Green and Addai. Jason Spadoni was everywhere and laid a hard blow on Shyrone Carey. Special teams practiced a long time on blocking punts. Ronnie Prude got beat deep a couple of times by Bowe and Davis.