LSU head coach Les Miles has come under a lot of scrutiny in the past three days because of his inexplicable mismanagement of the final minute in LSU’s loss to Ole Miss Saturday. And that scrutiny is well-deserved.
Miles has a history of questionable and poor game management during his tenure at LSU. It’s infuriated me quite a lot in the past and I haven’t been shy about calling him out. There are plenty of examples, dating back to his second game in 2005 against Tennessee to ill-advised timeouts he took against Arkansas in 2007 to give the Hogs a final chance to score before overtime to the little-noticed lunacy of timeouts called at the end of the first half against Washington this year that led to an extra three points for the Huskies.
But in cataloging Miles questionable football capabilities, the media is dragging up a Miles myth from the Auburn game in 2007. That myth says Miles went all-in on a pass play as time expired instead of kicking a field goal that would have won the game. Glenn Guilbeau of The Shreveport Times reports that ESPN’s Chris Low cited the 2007 Auburn game in chronicling Miles questionable decision-making:
ESPN.com’s Chris Low included all levels of football in his ranking of Miles’ late-game performance.
“You could watch football for a long time (on any level) and not see a worse butchering of an end-of-game situation then you saw from LSU,” he wrote. “Miles seemed as lost in trying to explain it all as he did when it was all melting down around him on the sideline. And let’s face it: Les Miles has played with fire before in the same situation.
“He got away with that one (the 2007 Auburn game), but not this time. There was zero direction on the LSU sideline. There were so many mistakes by the LSU’s offensive staff that the hardest part is trying to figure out where to start.”
Yes, Les Miles displayed an unfathomable level of incompetence at the end of the Ole Miss game. It’s inexcusable that
a $3.8 million man could be so incompetent. But what happened in the 2007 Auburn game is the Myth of The Last Second, as I explained two years ago.
Was it a ballsy call? Yes. Can I say with any confidence that Miles and his staff were fully aware of the game clock and simply calculated what they would need to run that play? No. I think they figured they would have enough time, but also might have expected to get the snap off with more than eight seconds left to play.
But regardless, it was a brilliant call that caught Auburn (and the world, apparently) off-guard and gave the Tigers an extra shot at winning the game before trying a field goal.
And, of course, Demetrius Byrd caught the ball with four seconds left; not one. I invite you to relive it:
Miles may well be a year or two and another embarrassing mistake or two from being fired. And if he is, moments like the Ole Miss fiasco will get heavy coverage in his epitaph highlight reel. But the 2007 Auburn call doesn’t belong there.
Yep. Only quibble is that Miles likely had nothing to do with calling that play. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that, even had Miles wanted to kick the FG, if his OC thought otherwise, he would defer to him.
Of course, if I lose the bitterness for a moment, it is likely that the OC called it and Miles agreed. Therefore, the credit goes to the “head coach” for making the “gutsy” call. But what’s now in question is whether he agreed with the call or just was deferring to the OC, in which case he shouldn’t get any credit at all for the “brilliant” (a characterization I agree with) call.
Bitterness activate! Point being, there’s no excuse whatsoever for not having given the ball to Stevan Ridley after the first down.
And here’s the scary thought – if Miles has just been sitting by whistling Hail To The Victors while Crowton makes the calls, what’s going to happen if Miles actually does start getting involved?
GC: “OK, swing pass out to Randle.”
LM: “I think we kick the field goal here.”
GC: “Coach, we’re on our own 20.”
Forget the TD call or the clock management, watch how the offensive line picks up the blitz. It would be nice to see that again.