re: 16 years ago today

SB Nation

One of the best articles ever written:

quote:

---

Tennessee’s already doomed in theory as the inferior team late in the game even on basic football princlples before you activate the computer worm capable of crippling the entire football matrix as we know it: Les Miles.

---

quote:

---

that’s how bad LSU’s offense is at this point with Jordan Jefferson attempting to “make pass go that way into hands.” They now use him as a kind of running quarterback, which he’s not. That would be Russell Shepherd, who is now a wide receiver who never gets the ball.

---

quote:

---

the LSU offensive staff suddenly remembers OH MY GOD WE HAVE A GOAL LINE PACKAGE and sets off a fire drill the People's Republic of China would call "disgracefully hurried and chaotic."

Huge men sprint off the field and onto it. The clock winds. Les Miles is seen throwing live chickens onto the field. Who knows where he got them, but they’re all part of the plan now. The LSU sideline’s complete anarchy triggers a disproportionate reaction on the Tennessee sideline. They send off three men, put in four, and one of the three sent off rushes back onto the field like a child terrified of missing the school bus for a field trip. (This child then ends up in the wrong town because they got on the wrong bus.) Derek Dooley wraps the headset cord around his neck and attempts to choke himself to death rather than watch what’s happening. The crowd silences itself by placing a eighty thousand bourbon bottles in eighty thousand mouths at once and draining them simultaneously.

---

quote:

---

Some men just want to watch the world burn. Others set it on fire accidentally and call their friends to come over and watch. Les Miles is both.

---

quote:

---

I cussed enough that I was embarrassed and had to reassess a few things.

---

This is something a lot of fans need to do.

I hit rock bottom after UT 2005. I was so irrationally angry after leaving the stadium, but I had a real wake up call as I made the trek home.

I was coming out of my student section phase of life, and with everything happening in the state at the time I realized there had to be some perspective when it came to these games we all love watching so much.

I was not a fan of the Miles hire. I wanted Spurrier, but Saban dragging his feet blew that for us.

Then I wanted any of the other big names out there, not this unproven but undeniably scrappy guy from a mid level Big 12 program that hadn’t won anything of note.


But I had the chance to meet and talk with him multiple times in the spring and fall camp so I had kind of felt like he had a good vibe and energy, and the players I talked to had really bought into what he was selling, notably Skyler, Addai, and Kyle Williams.

The ASU game really helped ease any concerns I had that the stage was too big for him.

Even in the UT game, it was pretty clear the team was prepared, despite all the chaos in the weeks leading up to that bizarre Monday Night Football game in Tiger Stadium??

Yes the game got away from us and I was so angry that it slipped away, but unlike others I didn’t let that define the team or the coach.

I watched with pride as that storm battered and exhausted group of LSU Tigers run the table for nine straight weeks until they just ran out of gas against a loaded Georgia team in Atlanta, a game I saw in person.

And then I was back in that same Dome a month later and watched them exorcise all demons against the Hurricanes in a blowout that couldn’t have been scripted more symbolically.


How anyone didn’t appreciate what that team did enough to give the coach a chance going forward after 2005 I’ll never understand.


What came next was a whole lot of fun for those of us that didn’t have our minds made up and allowed some perspective instead of just digging in that we were right waiting for our chance to say “I knew it all along TOLD YOU SO!!!”

quote:

---

He was goofy and had poor clock management and was a stubborn sob. His body of work flat out shows he was not a frick up, to suggest that is well, just wrong.

---

He was absolutely a frick up. As another poster mentioned in this thread, Jefferson scored on the first play from scrimmage in that TN game, and only scored a FG prior to the TD that ended the game. TN gave up 382 YPG that year and ended ranked as the 56th defense in the nation.

In that same game, LSU had 434 yards of offense, with Jarret Lee tossing for 185 of the 232 passing yards. Of the other 202 yards, Jefferson ran for 83 of those. Jefferson fumbled a snap and threw 2 INTs as part of that game before Lee came in.

The strategy of playing Jefferson over Lee cost LSU a natty, and Miles should've been fired.

quote:

---

The strategy of playing Jefferson over Lee cost LSU a natty, and Miles should've been fired.

---

We could have had 15 players on offense with JL and bama was still winning that game.