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| Les Miles carried off after 2015 victory over Texas A&M |
November 21, 2015
As Laquon Treadwell gathered Chad Kelly’s TD pass to put Ole Miss up 23-0, I was firmly convinced that Miles was done. After a 7-0 start and a #2 national ranking, the Tigers imploded losing three in a row for the first time in the Miles era. The wheels had finally come off and surely the head coach would be shown the door. The talk was LSU had a lead on Jimbo Fisher as Miles’ replacement.
Fast forward one week and all the speculation and drama was for naught. After an ugly and just plain hard to watch 19-7 win over A&M, Miles was retained for at least one more season. Joe Aleva didn’t sound terribly happy about the sudden turn of events and I didn’t blame him. From everything I read, LSU’s President, F. King Alexander, decided to retain Miles for reasons that had nothing to do with football.
Today
Personally I was ready to see Miles go if we had Fisher lined up. I was tired of LSU’s offensive woes and Miles’ dubious game management. In an age of prolific wide open offenses, LSU is still playing football in a phone booth. So here we are about to embark on season number 12 with Les. The only LSU coaches with longer tenures are Bernie Moore (1935-1947) and Charles McClendon (1962-1979).
How does Miles stack up against his contemporaries? I went back three years and looked at divisional and conference records for the six other coaches in the West. The numbers are as follows:
Coach
|
Divisional Record
|
Conference Record
|
Overall Record
|
Saban
|
15-3
|
23-3*
|
37-5
|
Freeze
|
10-8
|
14-10
|
27-12
|
Miles
|
9-9
|
14-10
|
27-11
|
Malzahn
|
9-9
|
14-11*
|
27-13
|
Mullen
|
8-10
|
13-11
|
26-13
|
Sumlin
|
7-11
|
11-13
|
25-14
|
Bielema
|
5-13
|
7-17
|
18-20
|
* Includes SEC Title Game.
It goes without saying that Saban is in a class all his own, but the rest of the coaches in the division are bunched around the .500 mark. As a footnote, Miles was 13-2 in divisional play his first three seasons as LSU’s coach.
Clearly this is a crucial year for Miles. LSU is deep and experienced in 2016. The Tigers get Alabama and Ole Miss at home. The media slelected Alabama to win the SEC…again. But Tiger fans are only going to be so patient. One division title in eight years has LSU fans frustrated.
A Michigan Man that loses five in a row to Ohio State would be on the hottest of hot seats. The seat of an LSU Man who has lost five in a row to Alabama is not much cooler. There are no excuses this season. Can the Mad Hatter conjure up more magic for the 2016 season?
