re: For the fans that are really down on LSU football/Les Miles/Recruiting.

I think it's the NCG loss. I really don't care about Saban. I hated Bama before Saban, with Saban, and will after Saban

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I hated Bama before Saban, with Saban, and will after Saban

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True that! I've hated Bama as an LSU fan for 30 something years.

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Because they are the last team standing. We beat all other comers. And yes, they beat us (and everybody else) in recruiting, again. Who do you suggest we compare to? Oregon? Texas? Arkansas? No, it's Alafrickingbama baby! They are in our conference and division. I want to beat 'em bad, regularly. But, not to lose focus. We have to play one game at a time. And we can't quit before we start when we meet again.

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Agree...but my point is that it's not fair to hold Miles up to a standard that 95% of the other coaches cannot even sniff.

He actually has done very well against them....he was just very unlucky to have to face em in the biggest game of the 2011 season......after already doing it once before.

(This is an extremely lengthy post. I apologize in advance.)

I wouldn't characterize my feelings as being "really down." Instead, I would characterize my feelings as a fatigued resignation and thwarted hope.

I do believe that the original poster has come close to diagnosing the genesis of the lingering angst in the LSU fanbase. Here's the truth that, in my opinion, undergirds most of the acrimony and division on this board over the last month:

(1) Les Miles is not a horrid coach. He isn't Curly Hallman. Les Miles isn't a bad coach, he isn't even an average coach. He's an above average coach. He's a very good coach. He is a fine motivator of young men by all accounts, he can be creative and bold in pivotal situations, and historically he has been an ace recruiter - the 2012 class notwithstanding. In sum, Miles has been a good, upper echelon college football coach;

(2) Although he is a strong coach, Les Miles is inferior to Nick Saban, who is likely going to be remembered with the likes of Parseghian and Bryant and the other towering greats of the game. I know this statement will cause reactionary fury and uproar in some posters, but I beg those individuals to simply look at the evidence and the evidence alone: Nick Saban has a higher overall winning percentage at Bama than Miles has at LSU, Saban has three total NC's (including two of the last three) to Miles' one NC, Saban has three SECCs to Miles' two, Saban has two one-loss seasons to Miles' one, Saban has two undefeated regular seasons to Miles' one, Saban has one overall undefeated season to Miles' zero, Saban has had higher ranked recruiting classes than Miles on average since he arrived at Bama, and Saban is now succeeding at placing more players in the first round of the NFL draft. Those are the facts that lead most disinterested national observers to conclude that Miles isn't as good as Saban (which is categorically not the same as concluding that Miles is a bad coach).

Now, the fact that Saban is better by some slim margin than Miles would be a meaningless kernel of theoretical trivia if Saban didn't coach in the SEC West. If Saban coached at UCLA, the relative merits of Miles and Saban would be immaterial fodder for coffee house chitchat. But Saban coaches in our division of our conference, at our most hated rival. We have to play him every year. Hence, he will perpetually stand between LSU and national/conference championships until he retires.

So what is a die-hard LSU fan who longs for national championships to do given that Miles is a very good coach, but is forced to compete with a better coach in his own division of his own conference? The way I see it, there are only two rational options:

(1) Support Miles and hope that he improves, Saban declines, or through some combination of those two factors and good fortune, LSU can begin to dominate Bama under Saban and win multiple NC's;

(2) Hope that Miles fails so that he can be replaced by a new coach who is as good or better than Saban and can dominate Bama and win multiple NC's.

(Note that I am discounting a potential third, irrational option: which is simply to vehemently deny that Saban is better than Miles at this juncture in time despite the evidence to contrary.)

Let's start with the latter. First of all, it's impractical and unwarranted. No AD is going to terminate Miles so long as he continues to post ten win seasons. Second of all, it's highly risky, given that there is no guarantee that LSU would be able to retain the services of a coach who suprasses Saban and gives us a better chance at victory than Miles. Let me be clear, I am NOT one of those strangely pessimistic fans who feels that LSU is destined to be shunned by appealing candidates and to hire a Mike Archer clone. That's not true. LSU is a desirable destination for head coaches. However, only a handful of men in America can be truly elite HC's, and trying to identify one would entail risk.

Accordingly, most fans I know choose the former option: they support Miles while acknowledging that Saban is a probably a better coach on the facts. They hope that Miles can improve or that Saban weakens or that some fortuity will intervene. I'm in that group.

This past year, game by game, I thought that my hopes were being fulfilled. Quarter by quarter, win by win, I set aside my reservations about Miles. I forgave him for Tennessee and Ole Miss and his clock management problems and his various quirks. I thought he had improved as a coach (he has) and that he might have surpassed Saban, especially after the initial Alabama contest. I invested wholeheartedly in him.

I wore my hopes and confidence on my sleeve when I entered the Dome on January 9, 2012. I believed. And I am almost certain that the many thousands of purple and gold clad LSU faithful beside me that night felt the same.

Which is why it was an utterly infuriating and disheartening shock to see what unfolded there below us on the turf in New Orleans. I felt duped. We were wildy outcoached, outprepared, and outwitted. Saban's staff made brilliant adjustments. We made none. We lumbered along stubbornly, executed an ineffectual gameplan, failed to put our players in the best position to win, and generally appeared outmatched. The hopes and confidence that the LSU fanbase carried into that contest were shattered, or at least severely eroded.

That performance in combination with the events of the last month - particularly Saban's theft of the top two players in Louisiana and the fact that his class was consensus number one in the country while ours was outside the top ten according to consensus - appears to many LSU fans to confirm the status quo: that Bama right now is superior (by an inch or mile, one could debate) to LSU.

Now, does that mean LSU's season was a failure? Of course not. Does it negate LSU's 13-1 season? No. Does it transmute the wins over Oregon and WVU into losses? Nope. But it does mean we are second best. Some people may be satisfied with that. Personally, I'm not. Being second best to Alabama for the foreseeable future isn't a particularly joyful or satisfying prospect. In fact, it's grating. So I'm back to hoping once more that Miles can improve, dethrone Saban, and establish his own national championship dynasty in Baton Rouge.

(Like I said, long post, my apologies. Probably my last thoughts on this subject for some time. I just wanted to post my complete view without the hostility that mars certain threads.)

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because the team/coach/recruits aren't meeting your expectations?

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My only hangup is the refusal to switch QB's after a brain-dead move by the starter(shovel pass), especially when the starter blamed another player for the brain-dead move. That's "Coaching for Dummies" type stuff, and Miles missed it entirely.

That said, I like where we are, and am excited for where we're going.

Good thoughts the312.
I think you are on target. I support Miles and going 1 and 1 with Bama is great, a split. I am disappointed in the loss, but it was a great season, we have every reason to believe we will beat Bama in 2012 and the war will continue until Saban leaves bama.

Very good post. Well said and unfortunately I agree. But I will remain a true die hard fan till I die.

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This past year, game by game, I thought that my hopes were being fulfilled. Quarter by quarter, win by win, I set aside my reservations about Miles. I forgave him for Tennessee and Ole Miss and his clock management problems and his various quirks. I thought he had improved as a coach (he has) and that he might have surpassed Saban, especially after the initial Alabama contest. I invested wholeheartedly in him.

I wore my hopes and confidence on my sleeve when I entered the Dome on January 9, 2012. I believed. And I am almost certain that the many thousands of purple and gold clad LSU faithful beside me that night felt the same.

Which is why it was an utterly infuriating and disheartening shock to see what unfolded there below us on the turf in New Orleans. I felt duped. We were wildy outcoached, outprepared, and outwitted. Saban's staff made brilliant adjustments. We made none. We lumbered along stubbornly, executed an ineffectual gameplan, failed to put our players in the best position to win, and generally appeared outmatched. The hopes and confidence that the LSU fanbase carried into that contest were shattered, or at least severely eroded.

That performance in combination with the events of the last month - particularly Saban's theft of the top two players in Louisiana and the fact that his class was consensus number one in the country while ours was outside the top ten according to consensus - appears to many LSU fans to confirm the status quo: that Bama right now is superior (by an inch or mile, one could debate) to LSU.

Now, does that mean LSU's season was a failure? Of course not. Does it negate LSU's 13-1 season? No. Does it transmute the wins over Oregon and WVU into losses? Nope. But it does mean we are second best. Some people may be satisfied with that. Personally, I'm not. Being second best to Alabama for the foreseeable future isn't a particularly joyful or satisfying prospect. In fact, it's grating. So I'm back to hoping once more that Miles can improve, dethrone Saban, and establish his own national championship dynasty in Baton Rouge.

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Great post. Best summary I've ever seen on the Rant as well as best expression of the frustration this whole knotted mess is for LSU fans who love/hate/love *CLM and what he's done during his tenure at LSU.

The only detail you didn't touch on was *CLM's fingerprints all over the whole QB JJ/JL fiasco and the question of why it lasted over 3 years or that it ultimately ended with that loud and grating (and finally whimpering) crescendo of futility that was the totality of the 1/9 game for LSU fans everywhere.

Don't forget, have to win the national championship game, people are now saying miles has not won anything yet! saying 2007 was with sabans players....

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I think that if Bama had a different coach and were having the exact same success, LSU fans wouldn't be bitching and moaning like many are now

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Probably depends on whether that hypothetical different coach was stacking his program like Saban is and had just taken us behind the whipping shed in the national title game.

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(which is probably the best it has EVER been).

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Besides 2003-2007, I guess.