Jeff, the firing of Les Miles should be cut and dried if emotions didn't enter into it. But the problem is that Les is a nice man, a good human being, who cares about his players and who seems at ease with anybody he meets.
But you don't judge football coaches on being Mr. Congeniality. You judge them on a steady stream of more wins than losses with little or no slippage. And that's what has caught up with Les — slippage in LSU's SEC record the last four seasons since the 21-0 debacle vs. Alabama in the 2011 BCS national championship game.
It's really evident against newer coaches in the SEC's West Division who have been hired the last five years. Against Ole Miss' Hugh Freeze (2-2), Arkansas' Bret Bielema (1-2) and Auburn's Gus Malzahn (2-1), Miles is a collective 5-5. So it's not just Alabama (five straight losses by LSU) that Miles is not beating. The latest string of three straight double-digit losses to a trio of the best teams on Miles' schedule lit the fuse of the Tiger Athletic Foundation money men
Miles said part of the problem with LSU's latest offensive struggles were injuries, particularly to the starting tight end and fullback. If your entire offense collapses because a loss of a tight end and fullback, then you need to reassess your recruiting. That's like pulling two boards off a house that you want to demolish and the whole thing collapses.
Jeff: I could not agree more, Ron. Injuries are not a valid excuse. Every team deals with them. There's no reason a program of LSU's prominence should be playing three freshmen simultaneously on its offensive line unless they are Kevin Mawae, Alan Faneca and Andrew Whitworth. That's an indictment on the program's recruiting and player retention in recent years.
The infamous 21-0 loss to Alabama in the 2011 BCS title game was the tipping point in Miles' 11-year tenure. He and the LSU program have not been the same since.
Before that inexplicable loss, Miles was 8-10 in games in which LSU was considered an underdog, including decisive bowl wins against Miami, Fla., and Georgia Tech. In that span, the Tigers lost only six games to teams they were favored to beat, or roughly one a year.
Since and including the 2011 BCS championship game, Miles is 0-for-10 in games as an underdog. Yet, in that span, his teams have managed to lose six games in which they were favored. This year it was Arkansas.
In other words, Miles has not done anything he wasn't supposed to do at LSU the last few years -- except of course lose a game or two a year he shouldn't.
Ron: To most of the outside world, including national media, they are saying, "He's the winningest coach in LSU history, he's won a national title and played for another, he's a great recruiter and they've lost three games this year. It would be a huge mistake firing Les Miles."
The outside world hasn't witnessed LSU's dumpster fire of an offense in which the most radical imagination you'll see is a jet sweep with a wide receiver.
The outside world hasn't seen the same mistakes being committed over and over again, penalties, busted coverages and lousy blocking, which really shows up against the best teams on your schedule.
The outside world doesn't see a head coach who can't give you a clear explanation that makes sense to any question you ask.
Most of the people who want to keep Les Miles are the ones who think he's quirky, funny or are fans of teams that want to keep beating him. I haven't seen an Alabama fan yet on Facebook or Twitter who thinks Les should be fired.
Jeff: Exactly. If I hear one more national analyst cite Miles' number of 10-win seasons I'm going to pull out what little hair I have left.
Comparing Miles' 10-win seasons to past LSU coaches is a classic straw-man argument.
First of all, LSU, like every other team in college football, now plays an extra regular-season game every year. They've played at least 13 games in every year of Miles' tenure. In the program's previous 100 seasons, they'd played as many as 13 games in a season three times, all under Nick Saban.
And Miles took over a different program than previous LSU coaches, thanks to Saban and the school's prudent push to upgrade facilities and build a tutoring center.
When Saban took the reins in 2000, LSU was a sleeping giant. Today it's a gridiron Goliath.
Fact is, Miles should win nine or 10 games every season when you consider the vast resources at his disposal.
His staff is the highest paid in college football. His teams play in front of more than 100,000 fans at every home game in one of the best environments in college sports. And he has the luxury of coaching the only Deep South program without another Power 5 conference competitor in its state.
And we're not just talking about any state. Louisiana produces football players like Nebraska produces corn.
Louisiana has long ranked first or second among states that produce the most NFL players per capita. Louisiana had 10 of the top 100 prospects in the nation, according to 247 Sports composite ranking of the 2014 class. This year the state has six of the top 100.
Football players in Louisiana grow up dreaming of two things: (1.) Playing in the NFL; and (2.) Playing at Tiger Stadium. It's not difficult to recruit elite talent to Baton Rouge.
Being the head football coach at LSU is like being the makeup artist for Angelina Jolie. Before you even start the job, there's a lot to work with.
Ron: Your NFL players-per-capita point concerning Louisiana leads me to my next point. There's this great fear that LSU can't hire a coach just as good or better than Les Miles. There are big-time coaches under contract dying to get this job. Why? For the very reason Nick Saban was attracted to it in 2000.
When he saw the numbers of NFL player per capita Louisiana produced, he told his agent Jimmy Sexton to get in contact with someone who could let LSU know he was interested. Because Saban knew he could win a national championship here.
The rabid fan base featuring boosters with deep pockets, the most feared playing venue in college football, state-of-the-art facilities, the in-state high school talent level and the exposure of playing in college football's toughest conference are all selling points.
There are highly successful coaches who want to coach at LSU because everything is in place to win a national championship.
Les Miles had a nice run. But in today's college football world, especially in the SEC and in elite programs like LSU, you can't have a three- or four-year dip of mediocrity. That's the harsh reality of the situation.
Jeff: Agreed. Miles had a good run but his stock is trending downward and has been for years.
He hasn't been able to fix recurring issues in the program. LSU has annually ranked among the SEC and national leaders in penalties. This year their 79 penalties are tops in the SEC and 26th nationally, even though the Tigers have played one fewer game than most teams. They have ranked either first or second in penalties in the league four times previously.
Meanwhile, the Tigers' pop-gun offense has ranked 94th or worse nationally in six of the past seven seasons. There's simply no excuse for such putrid production with the kind of talent LSU annually fields on offense.
Miles has had more than enough time to fix these problems. It's clear he doesn't have the answer. Keeping him around would simply be more of the same.
No, it's time for Miles and LSU to part ways.
If the program's decision-makers are ready to fire Miles as reported, then they need to go ahead and pull the trigger -- for everyone's sake. There's no need to prolong the inevitable. Let him coach the regular season finale against Texas A&M on Saturday and then move on. Let the lawyers work out the details. Waiting another month or another year is not the answer.
That said, Miles deserves to be treated with respect and allowed the courtesy of coaching his team one final time at Tiger Stadium. He has earned that right. Even Miles's harshest critics can't deny that he has operated the program with admirable class and decorum. LSU owes him a final chance to, as Les would say, lead the Tigers on the field at Tiger Stadium in pursuit of victory. It's not just the fair thing to do. It's the right thing to do.
Ron: Agreed. This decision should be made and announced in the next few days. Les should get his due and maybe even 10 yards of Tiger Stadium turf that he can plant in his backyard anywhere he moves just so he'll always have some of his favorite grass handy for chewing.
Les not goin no where
