re: A question for those who were around to remember

When my family and I were walking out of Lambeau I remember saying "We have to fire Les" but it was with the same tone you'd use when it was time to put an old pet down. No malice just sorta finality.

Through all the ups and downs of LSU, I've never stopped scheduling my fall weekends around their games. This year I have to fly to Salt Lake the day of the Bama day and I didn't book around it. That is a new level of apathy about LSU from me.

That Wisconsin game was a watershed moment. By that time there was an antagonistic atmosphere with Miles and the admin. It became this ego thing and we began to really decline. The record may have been a 1-3 game difference but Miles seemed to have have stopped searching for ways to improve and kind of dug his heels in.

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Moffitt took a ton of blame also.

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Man you aint lying. Now our offensive line is one of the softest, physically worst built looking groups ive seen in the sec. Thompson and Moore even tho actually undersized are the only ones close too lookin like a actual sec linemen from a thickness and build standpoint and they showed up like that.

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Les wouldn't change his neanderthal offense. He kept promising he would but he didn't. When I went to Lambeau expectations were high, and our first play from scrimmage was a power toss inside the tackles. If it wasn't for Tradavious White's pick and punt return we may not have scored against a mediocre Wisconsin team. I knew he was gone as I walked out of that iconic stadium.
BK has made terrible hires. Polian, then House, now Sloan and it's added up to incompetence at one phase of the game or the next. He's got to go 9-3 or I'm off the wagon.

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I must admit, THAT game in Wisconsin is when Les lost me. We were preseason #2 and he PROMISED over the summer that he was going to open up the offense and use our receivers more. When they trotted out the EXACT SAME OFFENSE that game, I was done. I don't have NEAR the "despair" or "anger" with Kelly, that I did for Miles at the end..............................

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What was the attitude of the fanbase when it was time for Les to go and how does it differentiate from coach BK or does it?

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I think it was a lot different. Les was red hot for years, perennial top 5 program and won a national championship. Then it started to slowly fall apart on the offense. Kept promising things would change but kept doing the same things that didn't work. Eventually people had enough.

With Kelly, it's perennial mediocrity and never sniffing the playoffs, much less a championship. People don't believe he can win because he's never shown any signs of it, every year is just a different excuse.

With Les, you were always like "if they just improve the passing game, we'll be back in it." But with Kelly, it's whack-a-mole every year.

The phases of the Les Miles years:

2005-2007 - The Let'er Rip/Mad Hatter Years

Fans were really disappointed Saban left so quickly after bringing us to prominence. Miles was seen a downgrade. There were some really frustrating losses, but some really solid wins. When Saban left the Dolphins and went to Alabama, the support for Miles greatly increased (mostly out of hatred for Saban), and fans started seeing him as a crazy guy whose teams played hard. The championship won over a lot of people.

2008-2010 - The Honeymoon Is Over Years

The crazy antics are fun when you are winning. Not as fun when you're losing games you shouldn't. Miles was starting to build a reputation as an underachiever relative to the rosters he was recruiting. These are also the years Miles became very conservative after all of the interceptions thrown. He became a lot less Mad Hatter, and a lot more traditional. Run, play defense, don't turn the ball over. It didn't help his cause that Saban was on the other side bringing Alabama back to national prominence. Fans were definitely discontent, and Miles was very much on the hot seat. The 2009 game against Ole Miss was a low point.

2011 - The Lost Year

With Miles on the hot seat, this felt like a sink or swim year. Then the first game happened: a complete destruction of Oregon. Fans started to believe again. The defense was exciting to watch. The offense was doing its part. But the question loomed: could Les Miles beat a max strength Nick Saban team? The Game of the Century happened, LSU eked out a win, and fans were sold... until the rematch where LSU couldn't cross the 50 yard line. Saban adapted, Miles didn't. That was the moment all of the air was let out of the balloon, and malaise crept over the fan base.

2012-2016 - The "Yea But" Years

"Yea but his teams play hard."
"Yea but he recruits well."
"Yea but he has great defenses."
"Yea but he almost always crushes OOC."
"Yea but he won a title in 07."
"Yea but we pay him too much, we can't fire him."

Every year LSU fans would get their hopes up, and every year the fans were let down after the Alabama game. The team, too, would self-destruct after the usual loss. There was a strong sense that LSU was never going to get to the top again with Miles. He was simply outclassed. Growing fan frustration was met with the yea buts. Until, slowly, even the yea-buts weren't holding strong. We weren't playing hard. We weren't crushing OOC opponents. He wasn't recruiting well. He wasn't being paid enough that we couldn't fire him. And then the bottom fell out. He was fired.

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If you asked me where we're at similarly with Kelly, I don't know. The circumstances are not the same, but the energy is very much similar to the last years of Miles. Not a question of if we should fire him, but when would be the least costly.

The biggest difference is that a lot of people still like Les but just felt like the game had passed him by and he wasn’t willing to change his offense with the times!! With Kelly he has never fit in here, was never really embraced as one of us and is not having success!!

I remember Les’ last game we thought we had beat Auburn on a last second TD only to have replay say we didn’t get the snap off. Les was fired a day later.

Orgeron was the interim & we started playing much better.

I remember how it was for the 5 coaches to get fired.BR was a sea of negativity and every time it got that way the coaches went under water and never came up.No LSU coach survived when the fans totally abandoned them.The AD,BOS,President,GOV of the stare get bombarded with calls and now emails and it is relentless.If Landry thinks he can score points with LSU fans he will make it happen,that’s the way La.politics are.

The hate against Kelly is far worse than Les. He had his champions sunshine pumping for him weekly. Kelly is more like a DiNardo. Everyone is just done with this a-hole.