re: Saban flirted with the NFL every year it seems.

Yes I can. I knew at the time what Saban was about to do at Bama, but had no idea Nick wanted back at LSU.

I wish I knew you then I would have told you the exact same thing. This isn't Monday morning Qbing on my part.

Anyone who was paying attention back then knew Les wasn't a pimple on Saban's arse coaching wise.

We may not have had a team for 2005 if Saban had coached during Katrina. Guy would have been a nightmare.

"Nick the Dick"

-Mushin Muhamad

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And yet if the rumors are true Nick wanted to come to BR after Miami, skip was an ABSOLUTE IDIOT for not hiring him back.

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The rumors are not true lol.


So many people only hear what they want to hear. When Saban talks about leaving LSU as a “mistake”, he’s talking about viewing the NFL as the next step, not because he just loved LSU and Baton Rouge so much and wished he had just stayed there for 20 years and retired there.


Perhaps a lot of you missed the part where he and Terry both made it very clear that they did not love Baton Rouge and that they cried early on because they missed the small college town feel and culture of East Lansing. She specifically talked about their time in ELM for five years as an assistant and another five as HC.

Baton Rouge, like Miami, is not a college town atmosphere. Tuscaloosa, while bigger than EL, is certainly more of the traditional college town feel that they clearly enjoy.


Saban was always talking about “the next challenge” back in those days. Leaving Miami to go back to BR would not have fit his profile.

Miles also had two top finishes and was about to field a preseason top 2 team, so despite the clowns claiming they knew after the Tennessee game that he was a horrible coach that would fail, there is no world in which Miles is fired after 2006 to bring Saban back. Zero.

Les was so out of the blue for that hiring cycle

I can’t even remember who I really wanted probably Jack del rio haha. Supposedly we flew to interview him but didn’t get permission from the owner (legally didn’t have to ) so the interview didn’t happen


I’ve only seen episode 1, do they go any deeper into the Bama hire in the others? I’d be curious if they touched on the rich rod portion of that. I’ve always wondered if he legit backed out or did bama get wind of Saban’s interest, pulled the rug, but let him “bow out” to save face

You don’t have to be justified to fire a coach, provided you pay the buy out. So what would we have sued for? I’m not saying it’s a move we should have made but that’s not why we couldn’t

Sure operating in hindsight you absolutely fire Les to bring him back, but he wasn’t GOAT Saban at that point

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When he ended up at Bama he was groveling to come back to LSU

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knowing what we know about Nick Saban, I find it very hard to believe that he ever “groveled“. Your post reeks of bitterness.

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I can’t even remember who I really wanted probably Jack del rio haha. Supposedly we flew to interview him but didn’t get permission from the owner (legally didn’t have to ) so the interview didn’t happen

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I too wanted del Rio and he wanted LSU. IIRC his wife is from Lafayette and his daughter was a student at LSU.

It was in del Rio's contract with Jacksonville that he could not interview for another job without permission. It was a fireable offense. On his way to the interview del Rio learned that LSU had not sought that permission so he turned around and went home.

I’m just tired of the constant shitting on Les Miles. Yes, he inherited a much better situation than Saban did. Nobody is disputing that, and Saban deserves a ton of credit for building the foundation.

But Les still won a hell of a lot of football games here, won a national championship, played for another, and consistently had LSU competing at the highest level. If the GOAT hadn’t set up shop as a division rival and built arguably the greatest dynasty in college football history, there’s a pretty good chance Les walks away with another national championship or two. That changes the entire conversation about his legacy.

Was he a great game-day coach? Absolutely not. His clock management was maddening, his offenses became painfully outdated, and his stubbornness eventually caught up with him. Those are all legitimate criticisms, and I’m not arguing that LSU shouldn’t have moved on when it did.

But the idea that he was some clueless moron who just stumbled into success for over a decade is ridiculous. He recruited at an elite level, assembled some incredibly talented teams, consistently had his players ready to compete physically, and maintained a winning culture in one of the toughest divisions in college football.

We’ve seen plenty of coaches inherit talented rosters and established programs only to run them into the ground within a few years. Sustaining success is a skill in itself, and Les deserves credit for doing it as long as he did.

You can acknowledge that Saban built the foundation, recognize that Miles had some glaring deficiencies, and still appreciate what he accomplished at LSU. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

I bitched about him a lot but looking at his overall era in hindsight, it was pretty damn good. Point being, he deserves more credit for sustaining success than the bumbling moron who just inherited a monster.

If he were truly incompetent things would have unraveled much more quickly. We’ve seen it here, you can’t win on cruise control