former UT defensive coordinator John Chavis immediately. UT gets some good talent on defense, but with the talent that LSU recruits, Chavis would build the best defense in the league on a yearly basis. He rarely says a word so he doesn't get a lot of press coverage, but his schemes are solid and his players love playing for him.

I think he is the leading man for the job. Don't really watch alot of UT football. Does he like to play alot of press man on the outside and digust blitz's? If so then I want him!

So so on the press coverage. I think our guys bailed out a bit too much. He loves coming up with blitz schemes and he's good at disguising them. We did finish 6th nationally in total defense, I believe.

With our crappy offense it is amazing we are 6th in the nation. That D was on the field a lot (big understatement) this year and they never really tired and gave up.

From the looks of it, Tiger head football coach Les Miles is pretty close to making a hire for his soon-to-be-vacant defensive coordinator position. Three names have surfaced as the leading possibilities - UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker, outgoing Tennessee defensive coordinator John Chavis and outgoing Clemson defensive coordinator Vic Koenning. Scott Rabalais reports that third parties have approached all three candidates on behalf of Miles.

The grapevine is saying that Koenning is going to be the guy LSU hires barring any unforeseen developments, as Walker reportedly prefers to stay on the West Coast and Chavis is being hotly pursued by new Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney. There are some connections between Koenning and LSU, as well; he and Gary Crowton are very good friends going back to the time Koenning was the head coach at Wyoming from 2000-02 and Crowton was at BYU as the head coach. Also, Koenning coached at Memphis when LSU running backs coach Larry Porter was there as a player.

Koenning's defenses at Clemson have been extremely solid and have ranked well nationally in virtually all the major categories despite getting very little help from the offense. Clemson gave up just 16.6 points per game this year, which led the ACC, and their total defense stat of 294.8 was also among the national leaders. From a pass defense standpoint one could expect a Koenning defense to look totally different from what LSU put on the field this year; opponents had just 5.1 yards per pass attempt against Clemson, which is an incredible number, and only 9.1 yards per completion. What that says is you can't throw deep on this team and they will force you to sustain long drives.

If that sounds like bend-but-don't-break, it probably is to some extent. I don't think this guy is a big proponent of bringing seven guys and blitzing every down. But that having been said, LSU blitzed an enormous amount this year and it didn't work. Koenning's reputation is that his guys are extremely fundamentally sound, don't blow coverages, tackle well and swarm to the ball, and they create turnovers. This year, for example, Clemson picked off 18 passes - three times the number LSU picked off - and they forced 24 fumbles, recovering 13 of them. When you're turning offenses over at that rate, you're OK playing a little bit of bend-but-don't-break.

Koenning, supposedly, IS good at what he does. His numbers bear that out. And I have long been of the strong opinion that when LSU hires coaches whose resumes show a pattern of strong performance, those coaches succeed at very high levels here. Koenning fits the bill.

But if it's Koenning, that's only part of the battle. LSU is going to need to completely retool the defensive coaching staff, because from what I understand it all of the current coaches are going to be gone one way or another.

The grapevine says that Ed Orgeron has indeed been contacted by LSU in the last 24 hours about the defensive line job. Orgeron has repeatedly said in the last week that he's interested in coaching at LSU, though his first position was that he wanted the defensive coordinator gig. He's not getting an offer on that from anywhere, though - Tennessee is his other main suitor and new head coach Lane Kiffin is bringing his father in for that job. It will be interesting to see whether new Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian, who coached with Orgeron at USC, would look at him as a defensive coordinator - but Orgeron has also said that he wants to keep his family in Louisiana if he can.

It's going to be interesting.

But wait, you say. LSU hasn't fired anybody yet - how are they going to bring in these new coaches?

That's a good point, and the answer to the question is that Miles seems to have a policy of helping his outgoing guys land jobs elsewhere rather than just dumping them. This can be irritating for fans to put up with, since we're all pretty scarred by the experience of this season and we want to see changes as fast as humanly possible. But if you consider what the implications of unceremoniously dumping coaches can be - like for example if their wives decide to get on the radio and call sports talk shows like they did at Auburn, maybe it's better to do it Miles' way.

Every one that calls into talk radio around here wants him. I def. like the exp. he brings to step right in and know whats coming from SEC offenses.

Heard that Koenning came out and said that he has been contacted by LSU.