my les miles epiphany

i'm sure this isn't the first post like this...so if you don't like it or think its too long just click back to board. but hey, as a tiger fan i felt like sharing this today as it MADE ME FEEL GREAT ABOUT BEING A LSU TIGER.


on my way home here in mobile this afternoon, i tuned in to the local radio hacks who had gump color guy phil savage on as a guest. didn't really pay a lot of attention until, just as i was stopping to get a haircut, he started talking about tennessee and made the statement 'the vols should have beaten lsu'.

now, i thought about this for a second. certainly the vols played well against LSU, and certainly they put themselves in a position to win. i'll grant both.

however, on the deciding play of the game (version 1), both teams showed ineptitude. LSU's was less (no pun intended, thought i had to remember the second s) egregious than tennessee's. on version 2 of the play, tennessee had a chance to stop LSU. again, LSU's execution was superior to that of tennessee, and the tigers won.

so after getting a haircut, i get back in the car and now the hacks have moved on to les and his quotes on extra and invisiable spies and defenders, as well as the issue of luck. the tone of their commentary was "that's les being les" and they followed it up with "but he just keeps winning".

i don't recall the exact quote that les had, but it was something along the lines of 'he'd rather be lucky' and "he liked to think that luck had something to do with hard work".

i may be wrong with the attribution, but to me that sounds like the thomas edison line about "luck being the residue of preparation".

now, i lurk here time to time but am not really in with all the board speak on negatigers and positgers and all of that jazz. i was not impressed by the les miles hire at the time. i was ready to jump on the fire les miles bandwagon after the tennessee debacle in 2005. in hindsight i realize that decision was hasty. when we won the national championship in 2007 i remembered being too hasty to condemn him before and wasn't ready to cannonize him, but started having more positive feelings about him. the skids of 2008 and 2009 started turning much of that negative. a few weeks ago, when i thought we had lost to tennessee, i said "that's it, we won't beat florida, allbarn, alabama or arkansas and may have a tough time with ole miss".

i honestly thought the end was near for les and i was ready for him to go. then a funny thing happened. seems a tennessee coach told his defense to 'bear their teeth and stop 'em' and in their zeal to get a full set, the vols had 13 players on the field.

three weeks ago i thought we'd be lucky to be 7-5. today we're 7-0.

listenting to those guys on the radio, i realize that my view of les miles is always going to be biased based on the fact i am a LSU fan. i fear that sometimes les makes us the laughingstock of college football. that hurts my team, and i don't like it.

but while they joke about les and all the crazy and seemingly lucky ways he WINS, and the end of the day, they respect THAT HE WINS.

they also made some commments that he seems like a genuinely NICE GUY.

when les won the title in 2007, it was with 'Saban's recuits'. funny you rarely heard saban won in his third year at bama with 'shula's recruits'.

there are probably folks on here who could do far better jobs listing all the pros and cons about les miles than i can.

whatever they are, today Oct 20, 2010 i just have to look at this. we are 7-0. we are ranked no. 6 in the country. we are playing the no. 4 ranked team in the country and i feel pretty good that we are going to beat them (barring too much of the normal cheating that goes on).

let me restate this. i feel good that the LSU team, that has been prepared and recruited and will be led by les miles, WILL TRAVEL TO THE NUMBER 4 TEAM IN THE COUNTRY's HOME FIELD AND DEFEAT THEM ON SATURDAY.

i don't know if it's luck, karma, a great fa-kade, the players winning despite the coaching, deals with God satan or orvil reddenbacher....i feel like my tigers, LES MILES' TIGERS, are going to win.

it might have been a bumpy road, but this season, les miles has gotten us to where we wanted to be after 7 games. and that gives us a chance to be where we want to be after 12, 13 and 14.