re: How Come we didn't Hire Jimbo Fisher?

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The ghost of Mike Archer played a big part in the thought process, I'd imagine.

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This is the main reason. LSU was only five years removed from the 1990s at that time. This was before the recent successes of in-staff promotions like Bielema, Butch Jones and Chip Kelly. LSU had sound reasoning, and Bertman seemed to conduct a pretty thorough coaching search. Main candidates before Miles were Butch Davis (still being paid by the Browns, not to coach), and Bobby Petrino.

Of the remaining coaches available, Miles seemed to be the only one possessing the following characteristics: 1) NFL coaching experience 2) Successful head coaching experience at a BCS conference. Miles was one of four major hires in college football that offseason- the other theee being Meyer at Florida, Weis at Notre Dame and Spurrier at South Carolina. Miles hasn't fared so badly compared to the others, and keep in mind that each of those schools announced their vacancies in November 2004 or earlier, giving them about a month head-start on LSU (Saban resigned on Christmas Day).

I can't really fault the approach Bertman took with his coaching search in 2005. A program of our stature should primarily look at coaches with head coaching experience.