re: Kelly just pulled a highly respected nfl assistant from a super bowl contender

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I 100% agree with your assessment. I will defend Miles over all record anytime but by 2015 it was time for him to move on. However he was always kind of a goofball, a “character”. I am very happy to have a coach now that’s serious and professional not a zany cartoon character

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I totally get that and I agree. Having a professional running the show again is long overdue. Even though the media has already tried to turn him into another clown, CBK isn’t going to play their games.


I do think the media approach makes it again important to put Miles’ “goofiness” into perspective.

At first, it wasn’t zany or cartoonish, it was more roguish and a sort of irreverence. His personality was actually a little aggressive, which was more respected those first few years.

He won over a lot of doubters, myself included, handling the hurricane season of 05 so well. Then in 06 his outburst at halftime of the Tennessee game and the team responding so well going on that great run to end the season was reminiscent of 2001. Then following that up with such a memorable 07 championship campaign, he was seen as “The Mad Hatter” of CFB, in a good way.


Then things started unraveling with the pick 6s in 08 and Ole Miss in 09, of course at the same time Saban was emerging as the king of CFB, and the character became a little less respected.

But the defining moment was in 2010 when he picked up that blade of grass as he was calling the incredible fake punt to take down Saban and Bama.

It wasn’t a big deal at all but the media latched onto it and Miles really leaned into it imo as a sort of foil to Saban’s iron fist personality. It started with the grass and then evolved into those wacky press conferences where he really tried to present himself as the opposite of Saban who of course always ran his like a courtroom.


The recruiting machine that Saban was constructing felt like a different approach to selling LSU was in order, and Miles was working with what the situation gave him imo and went with the more fun/easy going family environment of NFLSU.


It went great through the Cotton Bowl win and all through 2011 as we knocked off Bama for the second time in a row, but it bit him as that dichotomy between Bama and LSU (and the styles of Miles and Saban) played into the media’s narrative for The Rematch.

It teetered on the edge through 2012 and into 2013, even though the recruiting aspect of it actually continued to succeed as evidenced by the all time 2014 class, but fell apart as a media strategy quickly once the distance between LSU and Bama became clear in that 2013 game and he became easy for the media to dismiss as a silly character rather than the very good coach he had been up to that point.


So while O was always just a silly character that the media wanted to growl and dance for the cameras, Miles really did start as something else and slowly descended into that goofball version of the Mad Hatter that was more Wacky Les instead of The Hat, which was more of a sign of respect.