Looking at 2010: LSU might be a month away from starting fall practice for the 2009 football season, but the Tigers are already working on recruiting for 2010. According to Rivals.com, the Tigers are in the hunt for 22 of the nation’s 100 top high school football players. Some of the high school seniors looking at attending LSU are Jordan Allen, a defensive end from West Monroe, Trovon Reed, a wide receiver/running back from Thibodaux, and Lache Seastrunk, a running back from Temple, Texas. Already Eric Reid, a safety from Dutchtown and a Rivals 100 member, has announced his intentions to go to LSU in the fall of 2010.
Back in purple and gold: Nick Saban will once again be the LSU football coach for an upcoming movie. Saban will play himself in The Blind Side, a movie about how Michael Oher went from growing up on the streets of Memphis, Tenn., to becoming an All-American lineman at Ole Miss with the help of the Tuohy family. Saban was still the Tigers’ head coach when the school was recruiting Oher in 2004. “I told our players at Alabama that it was a historic event and this happened when I was at LSU,” Saban told ESPN. “I did this in honor of the Tuohys and Michael, even though he didn’t come to LSU or Alabama.” Several other current and former SEC coaches are set to appear in The Blind Side, including Houston Nutt of Ole Miss, former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville and ex-Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron. The Blind Side, which stars Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw, is set to come out Nov. 20. There was almost another LSU connection to the film: Former Tiger basketball star Glen “Big Baby” Davis auditioned for the part of Oher. Read the ESPN story here.
Lance is back: Lance Armstrong remained a split second behind leader Fabian Cancellara after today’s sixth stage of the Tour de France. Thor Hushovd of Norway led a mass sprint finish to capture the stage along rain-slick roads south of the French border in Spain. Cancellara of Switzerland stayed just ahead of the seven-time champion after the 113-mile ride from Gerona to Barcelona. Hushovd of the Cervelo team collected his seventh Tour stage win by edging two Spaniards in the final sprint—three-time world champion Oscar Freire, the runner-up, followed by Jose Joaquin Rojas. They finished in 4 hours, 21 minutes, 33 seconds, the same time as 40 other riders, including Armstrong and Cancellara in the main pack. The race heads to the first big mountain challenge with Friday’s ride into the Pyrenees from Barcelona to Andorra. The Tour ends July 26 in Paris.
