Distilling down Les Miles

A co-worker of mine, who is from Big 10 country and pulls for a Big 10 school, asked me a couple months ago if I had accepted Les Miles as LSU's coach, pointing out his record to date at LSU. I told him that he was growing on me, but there was something about him I couldn't quite figure out, and perhaps accept. He said, laughing, "what, growing on you?, the guy wins". I acknowledged this, but said I didn't like his style of play, this "inch worm" football, "you know, 3 yards, then 2 yards, with rarely a pass". It can be effective, but it's boring and ugly to watch, I said.

He said, "you mean, Big 10 football". I said, I suppose. I then reiterated my dislike for his near complete abandonment of the forward pass, despite so many receiving weapons on the roster.

Fast forward to today and distilling it down

Les Miles' system works, most of the time; this I understand. And you cannot really argue with his record, it's phenomenal. But despite his apparent affable, family oriented-nature and other character attributes that aren't entirely necessary for the job but nice when the coach that represents your school has them, something has never sat well with me about Les Miles. And just after the Georgia game, some ideas began to crystallize into theories, I suppose.

There are three:

a) he doesn't see the QB position in the modern-day-offense sense; a "Schembechler" protege as so many people like to point out. (By the way, Schembechler was a very good coach, but not great -- he never won a national championship and his teams usually lost their bowl games) This may help explain Miles' incredible reluctance to play any backup QB beyond the speculated personal issues between Miles and Lee. So, perhaps Les Miles sees the QB position as a COORDINATOR of the offense, not the CAPTAIN on the field.

b) Clock Management Follies of prior seasons, and now the Bama-BCS Debacle, where we witnessed a do- or-die, fans, school, state, and coonasses-be-damned attitude; he was going to win or lose it his way; and no, he would not entertain ideas to change course, such as go to the air -- football's not played in the air, it's played on the hard grounds of the cold mid-western plains. Stubborn, personal IDIOSYNCRASIES that render him purblind to the reality around him.

c) The JL story. The statements from Miles that led you to believe this kid was getting a fair shake and would see prime playing time. Barring a story that would explain (and justify) Miles' handling of JL, in this he has completely lost my confidence and respect. And this ties into the above points: he'd put HIS "principles" (whatever the heck they are) ahead of the best interest of the team, the school, the fans., and yes, I'll say it, THE STATE because we LSU fans are a very proud bunch.

So, I guess what I am saying is, when I visualize his name it looks like this:

*Les Miles