re: In all honesty, how many of you were disappointed at the time when

I questioned when they hired Saban,...never heard of him...and at the time, he wasn't that impressive either....just saying,...all of you young people that have become fans in the last 5 to 9 years do not know what a mediocre team is really like...you had to have lived through the Stovall days....and all the others...

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dinardo, archer, whoever else would have won in 06-07 too

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frick saban

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If LSU is shelling out $4,000,000 a year, it should get an elite coach. LSU is wasting millions.

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LSU didn't hire him for 4MM a year. Actually, if you look up his initial contract, LSU was only paying him a little more than he was making at OSU in his first contract. I think it was around 1.8MM. He did not start making his current 3.5MM contract until he won the BCS Champ and Michigan was sniffing around. All the people bitching about how much he makes would be the same ones bitching if LSU did not give him a contract equal to that of other BCS Champ winning coaches and another team hired him away after the 2007 season with a 34-6 record. A record that included 2 division titles, 1 SEC title, 1 BCS title and a 3-0 bowl record including 2-0 in BCS bowls...all in his first 3 years.

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all of you young people that have become fans in the last 5 to 9 years do not know what a mediocre team is really like...you had to have lived through the Stovall days....and all the others..

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Hold your hosses old timer, I date back to Dietzel days so I do know what mediocre can be. Stovall, Archer, Hallman, Dinardo/Tepper -- I saw the trends as they started, I bled through them as they deepened, I know very well what it was like.

What I see now is what is looking an awful lot like a potential for the further downward trending of yet a third season.

LSU is no longer threatening for SEC dominance and has not been for 2 seasons. This is very alarming to me as an LSU fan, especially since we are only 3 years out of a flukey but still real BCS Crystal Trophy.

How can LSU decline so rapidly? Don't give me RP as an excuse; excellent coaching would have found a way to take the raw freshman talent we had JL and JJ, and mold them into something that by now would be coming into their own. The Spring Game has shown us this is still not the case.

Get ready for a third year slide. Then tell us about mediocre...

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All the people bitching about how much he makes would be the same ones bitching if LSU did not give him a contract equal to that of other BCS Champ winning coaches and another team hired him away after the 2007 season with a 34-6 record.

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At the time he was hired, Miles was a bit of an enigma to me. I wasn't thrilled with the hiring of what I saw as a virtual unknown, but his production in his first few seasons definitely earned him credibility. 2008 was a horrible aberration, but it's understandable given the circumstances surrounding the program. I think everyone knew what was going to happen after he dismissed the star QB anyway... 2009 represented a nice progression back toward the level of production we had seen in prior years and I expect us to cover the other half of the distance this coming year and get back to 11 or 12 wins.

I was hopeful until I saw how badly his Okie state team got beat by mediocre Nebraska team in the Alamo Bowl and then I knew we had a dud. He has lived by out-talenting the opposing team for 3 years but the last 2 years the talent at key positions wasn't up to par and we see the results. I don't expect much to change this year. Prob 8-4.

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They weren't shelling out $4 million until after he brought home the trophy.
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So a national title costs $1.25 million, and an 8-5 season costs $4 million.

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So Bama paid $4 million for a 6-7 season in 07?

People need to realize a few things in this discussion:

At the time Les was hired, LSU was one of the biggest jobs out there. The timing was bad, but it wasn't like Tennessee just went through. Our AD at the time (Skip Bertman) decided to go on the cheap and hire a project coach. Difference here was that Emmert wasn't there to help make sure it was a good hire.

In regards to comparing Saban, he took over an MSU team on probation and turned them around to a 10-2 team. They were in shambles and he grew as a HC. He then took over LSU when we weren't a BIG name and were a bad team.

Miles took over a bad team at OSU and made them respectable. He also lost some embarassing games there too. Saban never gave up 21+ point leads multiple times in his career. Miles has done it on several occasions. So the two are not equal, especially when you realize Saban improved as a coach each season, and Miles has not. Saban is a better coach at Bama than he was here. The same CANNOT be said for Miles from OSU to here.

As for the salary issue, its a stupid contract and had they not offered it to Miles after the NC, and he left. I'd have been perfectly content with it. We lucked into that NC more than any team in history. Reality is that contracts should always be performance based. He won an NC, so give him a bonus for that season to bring him into the top 3 salaries that year. Next year he's back to the same contract with a modest raise. If he doesn't like it, he's really not a great coach and can be replaced.

In the end, Miles has underwhelmed every year he's been hear, but he's won. Yes, a 2-loss NC, while great, is still underwhelming given the talent on the team and how we got there. That said, I have always been skeptical of Miles, and still am, but I still wish him luck and hope he turns things around.

I was very pissed. Now I think it was a good hire. He won a NC and led us to bowl V's 4 out of 5 years. I couldn't hardle watch the Cap 1 game Nicky blew for us because I knew Les was coming in.