re: If you consider les miles a "great" coach, please

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You're such a moron. Yep, Bama's talent was REEEAAALLL deep last year, huh? You do realize that we have twice the talent they had, but are still going to have the same record, right?

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I forgot that ULM's talent was better then Alabama's last year.

Some of y'all think that Shula left the cupboard empty. He actually did quite the opposite.

Rank Year
10 2007
11 2006
18 2005



Sorry, its not like he left Saban with peanuts.

Even after this year's dismal performance, he's won 78.8% of his games here. No other LSU coach can beat that.

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He's done some good things.....why shut your eyes to that?

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Negativity is ALWAYS the popular thing to do.

This was a bad year. There is no doubt about that. There is also no doubt that Miles is at least at fault for the D hires. If you do this, you have to be at least a LITTLE objective about his previous accomplishments. You cannot dismiss 2005. You JUST CAN'T. That team had more excuse to sell Miles out and quit on him than any other. They knew the coaching of the GREAT Saban. They had just been through more trauma with the hurricanes than any football team in LSU history. And then came the UT game. Miles may not be a great coach, but he is also not a terrible one. A terrible coach would have lost the team (like Hallman after the 94 Auburn game). They had EVERY excuse to quit on the season. What happened next? Does anyone remember this?

I think what he did at Okie State was very impressive. You can point out Gundy kicking out players and so forth, but Miles rebuilt that program at the end of the day.

Up until this year, I liked the fact that he seemed to be evolving as a coach in certain aspects. The team's been ready for every bowl game thus far. There's been a lot of pluses while he's been here and some negatives to go a long with it. Personally, I'm not gonna shite the bed because of one bad year. But that's just me.

I think there's only a select few of "great" coaches in the nation. And if he goes I don't think it's a definite that we'll end up getting one. A lot of guys do great at mid-level programs(like Kelly for instance or Miles for the most part did at Okie State/Saban at MSU), it doesn't translate to the higher level programs all the time like Urban Meyer has at Florida.

Basically, I think we could have done a lot worse in 06. I'd like to see him succeed. If we shite the bed again next year I'll have a completely different outlook most likely.

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go look at Les' 2006 class that was highly ranked and tell me the percentage of players from it that amounted to anything at LSU.

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12/26 have seen lots of playing time. I say thats not bad for players that would only be RS sophomores.

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SlowFlowPro

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Miles is a great coach, and you are a great poster.

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and i mean specific acts. not just general, "omg he won the title!"

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SFP, for your purposes, the perfect appears to be the enemy of the good. As long as we're not counting a title championship (in and of itself) for other coaches by comparison, and with the stipulation that I am not arguing that 2008 was a good, or even acceptable job of coaching, nor am I arguing that Miles is "perfect", fine:

Prior to LSU:

Miles coached and had success in the NFL. He also coached at Okie State, and had success there. Notable because Okie State is not a place where one is guaranteed success. Recruited well at Okie State, despite sharing the state with Bob Stoops' Oklahoma. Also, first coach to defeate Bob Stoops twice (and did it not at Texas, or Nebraska, but Okie State).

While at LSU -

-Coached LSU to three consecutive top 5 finishes, including getting the team through the Hurricane Katrina/Rita mess in his first season. LSU teams have only finished in the Top 5 of the final AP poll 9 times, and Les was the coach of 3 of those (in only 4 years of coaching at LSU).

-Coached LSU to three consecutive dominating bowl performances, against highly regarded opponents, including a BCS-CG. (Side note, Coach Miles has not coached an LSU defeat at the hands of an non-conference foe, yet.)

-Won 11 or more games in three seasons. In 115 years of LSU football, LSU has recorded 10 or more wins 9 times. Three of those seasons were coached by Les Miles. Also, of those 9 seasons, only 5 had 11 or more wins. Again, Les Miles coached 3 of those 5 seasons.

-Recruits very well - Coach Miles has secured recruiting classes (and using the imperfect Rivals for convenience) that ranked

2005 -- #22 (small class, only 13 signees)

2006 -- #7

2007 -- #4

2008 -- #11

2009 -- Currently #1, but certainly will be a Top 4 class, according to Rivals.

(Does a 7-5 2008 season make Coach Miles "not Great"? Pete Carroll never goes 7-5 (at least at USC), nor does Mack Brown (at least at Texas), nor Bob Stoops (at least at Oklahoma), nor Mark Richt (at least at UGA) so this year might be the chink in the armor for Les.)

One season, bad as it appears to us now, shouldn't be justification (in and of itself) of declaring Miles a poor, or just merely "good" coach. Other SEC coaches considered "great" with 7-5 (or worse) records -

Nick Saban, Alabama, 2007

Steve Spurrier, USCe, 2005, 2008

Lou Holtz, USCe, 1999 (first year, winless), 2002, 2003, 2004

Tommy Tuberville, Auburn, 1999, 2001, 2008(fired) - never won a National Championship (but was universally considered robbed of a chance with 2004), so is Tubby considered "great"?


-Miscellaneous - generally plays to win if there is an opportunity (Auburn & Florida in 2007)

-Really, I can only point to one bad coaching job before the 2008 season - Tennessee in 2005.

-Team really only got flat outplayed prior to 2008, UGA in the SEC-CG in 2005.


SFP, do you consider any Division I, Bowl Subdivision coaches great, and why?

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That's like saying Miles is the only coach in LSU history that won 10 games 3 years in a row.

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There's just no reasoning with you Miles haters. He didn't win 10 games, he won 11 games (12 in 2007). So he played the extra game and won it. What else should he have done? Won 12 games? LSU had a bunch of 9 win seasons under Mac, when we only played 10 and 11. Nobody wants to say (except me and a couple of others) Mac was a great coach either.

Saban coached as many games a year as Miles, yet he only exceeded 10 TWICE, out of 5 tries. Is he great for only doing it 2/5 times, while Miles is not, because he only did it 3/4 times?

It's just nonsense.