I wrote this in September 2009 during a rough time for CLM. I maintain my opinion that he may not be the best coach, but he is the right coach for LSU. I feel it's time to finally post what I wrote 2 years ago...

I was a Captain in the Army, a blackawk pilot, and I served two tours in Iraq and two in Kosovo. LSU football was my link to the world back home.

“On December 1st, 2007, I sat on an Air Force C-130, waiting 3-hours for a thunderstorm to pass through Balad, Iraq before we were cleared for departure. I was upset that we boarded the plane 2 minutes before kickoff of the SEC Championship game with Tennessee, and the one and a half hour flight would mean I would miss the first half. With the weather delay, now I would miss the entire game. My consolation: I knew I was leaving Iraq for the last time and would never endure a year without the opportunity to see LSU play football at Tiger Stadium.
Still, I had a smile on my face (for another reason) as I sat on that plane in the Thunderstorm.
This was my second deployment to Iraq and the last four months were perhaps the most enjoyable of my 26 I spent in Iraq. You see, I had the joy of watching the roller coaster ride all LSU fans took enroute to a 10-2 regular season. A season with big wins over, Florida, Auburn, and Alabama. A season with heart wrenching losses to Kentucky and Arkansas. My emotions took over when I watched LSU play, because it was MY link back to Louisiana, where I should have been. It was my bond with the real world back home.
And I displayed that emotion to my fellow Soldiers. In a unit filled with men and women from all corners of the United States, our common bond far away in Iraq was our love of college football. Everyone had a team, rooted passionately for that team, cherished their victories, and trash talked daily. It got so bad, we had to enact rules for trash talking. (If your team lost the week before, you had no voice. Not in top 25, no voice. Misquote a statistic, no voice) It was a good year to that point for our guy from Ohio St, USC, OU, and UWV. A quiet one for out TENN and Nebraska faithful. But, I was perhaps the most lambasted.
As LSU received tons of media attention for their endless talent, I watched the #1 LSU team fall twice in suspenseful defeat. The last defeat, seemed to extinguish all hope of the BCS Championship. So I put my four BCS Championship tickets on EBay, and had to comfort myself with the consolation…four tickets to the Sugar Bowl (should we get past Tennessee).
There I sat, deflated by my team’s loss to Arkansas, ridiculed by my fellow Soldiers for trash talking my “overrated team.” No BCS, possibly no Sugar Bowl. And to add salt to the wound, the venerable, all knowing, Kirk Herbstriet, said our Coach wanted to leave us for Michigan. Rock Bottom. Was my team so overrated, so bad, that even the coach wanted out?
Then, Coach Les Miles, did something no one expected. He called his press conference, announced his intention to stay at LSU, and proclaimed his the tigers a “DAMN STRONG FOOTBALL TEAM.”
Then I boarded the plane with a huge smile DAMN SMILE on my face.
The rest is history. But I wouldn’t find out until I landed 5 hours later when my Soldiers sought me out at the baggage pickup in Kuwait to tell me the news.
LSU, behind Perrilloux, crushed the Volunteers.
Missouri collapsed.
West Virginia got beat down in the backyard brawl.
LSU is in the BCS game!
Never doubting LSU could beat Tennessee, but who could have predicted the craziness of the collapses and LSU’s accent from 7 to 2.
The next 24 hours was a frantic search for a reliable phone to call back to the states, pull my BCS tickets off Ebay, sell my Sugar Bowl tickets to a grateful Georgia fan, and thank Karma for rewarding Les Miles’ loyalty.
A month later, I watched inside the Superdome as LSU defeated “The” Ohio State. Not only did they have a Damn Strong Football team, but they had a Damn Strong Football Coach as well.
Les Miles the man:
I month later, I stood in a bar on Canal Street watching another Louisiana native, Eli Manning, make the greatest play in Superbowl history to defeat the undefeated Patriots in another improbable occurrence of events. After the game I walked outside where my sister stood near the parade barricades. The parade had just started and the first few floats were just passing.
One float stopped briefly in front of us and the man in the front of the float, leaned over, singled out my sister, spoke in a very fatherly tone, “You’re a very beautiful young lady,” then tossed her a large strand of beads. She looked back with a very surprised, yet satisfied look, and asked “Who was that?”
I had to laugh! I said, “Les Miles, the Head coach at LSU! He just told my sister she was beautiful”.
What a class act.
The man complemented my sister, chose loyalty to LSU over his dream job at his Alma matter, and consistently chose the harder right over the easier wrong when it came to is players (reference Perrilloux – and in my opinion the reason for an 8-5 ’08.)
I think he’s a Damn Strong Coach and an even better man. I welcome him as for as long as he would like to stay at LSU, and I hope it’s for a long time, because he’s proven to me he belongs."

Forget fotball for a moment. The guy is a great man... Did you see the way he took Mathieu under his wing at the end of the game. You can tell he loves those players and they work their tails off for him.

I'm excited for this season. That D is nasty and the O will be better as the season progresses. I won't need to put my BCS tickets on EBAY this year!