re: what would you do? be honest

If I'm happy where I am, I wouldn't risk my current happiness and success just for a familiar environment where the pursuit of equal happiness and success will ultimately be decided by factors of limited control and far less certainty.

So in Miles' case, his current success is not strictly a result of his input. He can credit the LSU facilities which attracts recruits as well as the multiple coaching assistants, the quality of players, and the virtually exclusive territorial recruiting rights to one of the highest per capita concentrations of athletic talent in the US. To maintain this success may require only incremental changes each year. It is easier to keep doing what has worked.

To go to Michigan, there will be a much more diverse set of changes whose intertwining effects will have no track record of success to have faith in - optimism that your input was the sole determining factor of success has a pretty good chance of turning out to be false optimism. In Michigan, if Lloyd Carr was the only personality in place who didn't want Miles, Carr would be out of the picture. He's already retired (due in part to public pressure), so he can't wield that much political influence without the support of others. So why would Miles risk what he has for a more divisive political environement?

The list of successful coaches who succeeded elsewhere is not very pursuasive of an expectation of continued success when compared to a list of successful coaches who failed to achieve the same level of success elsewhere.