As most here know, I am not a reactionary Miles apologist. However, the recent media jihad to disengenuously portray Hill as a vicious predator and Miles as his meek enabler is a disgusting farce. For example, the last sentence of Mandel's response is nothing but inflammatory, uninformed, hyperbolic nonsense. It's a gross distortion. And it is completely unfair to LSU. I'm genuinely infuriated at the baseless slander.

Aren't modern journalists even required to conduct a superficial factual investigation before they launch into grandiose, unfounded condemnations of individuals and programs? Jesus.

quote:
Stewart, why isn't more written, shown on the ticker and discussed on ESPN about Les Miles and his lack of discipline? There was the case of Ryan Perrilloux, of Honey Badger and his self-proclaimed 10 failed drug tests and now of running back Jeremy Hill, who received "carnal knowledge" from a 14-year old and later sucker-punched some kid, both situations in which he was convicted. Still, Les lets them all play. Is he bulletproof, or do we have different rules for someone like Les and someone like Urban Meyer?
-- RTG, Dallas

I've written about the Meyer/Miles double standard before, and brought it up on Twitter again on Monday night following Hill's reinstatement. It's pretty unbelievable. I get that Meyer isn't a sympathetic figure, but if he's guilty of giving Florida players too many second chances (as I heard over and over again this summer), then my gosh, what about Miles? Perrilloux was given way more than three strikes before he finally got the boot. Tyrann Mathieu seemingly lost track of how many chances he got. And RTG didn't even bring up Jordan Jefferson, who was also arrested.

Now there's Hill, who thanks to some suspiciously flexible judges, will apparently not miss a game because ... well, his teammates wanted him back. How could a head coach possibly override his players?

Yet as I've also written before, I understand why Miles is so lenient. No one will give him a pass if he loses to TCU because Hill isn't in the lineup. (The Horned Frogs, it should be noted, will be without star defensive end Devonte Fields, suspended two games for an undisclosed team rules violation.) And that's really the lesson here. If a coach is like Miles and never pretends to care about discipline and values and all that magnanimous stuff in the first place, then it won't come back to bite him. Just win games, do quirky stuff like eat grass and the media and fans will mostly let it slide. But if a coach is like Meyer and openly boasts about recruiting "the top one percent of one percent" and the importance of being respectful to women ... and then a bunch of his players get in trouble, he'll never hear the end of it. Not even after suspending a starting running back (Carlos Hyde) three games for an incident in which no charges were filed. At LSU, players who stay out of jail tend to stay on the field.

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This post was edited on 8/7/13 at 5:46 pm