RABALAIS: Don’t ever bet against Les Miles
Someone is always trying to discount Les Miles.
He’s just the lucky guy in the high hat, the guy who won a title with Nick Saban’s leftovers, the Inspector Clouseau who stumbles through the scenery until he somehow trips over the criminal and solves the case.
Even at the end of what may be LSU’s greatest season of football ever, a quarterback controversy is a nagging pain in the neck of perfection. Down deep, what a lot of people are asking themselves is does Miles know what he’s doing when it comes to Jordan Jafferson and Jarrett Lee.
The answer with Miles, with his quarterbacks, with his career, is always the same:
Les is more.
Tuesday, Miles was named The Associated Press National Coach of the Year. Some ask what did Miles do that was so special. He had the best team. Shouldn’t he have won every game?
The answer, like Miles himself, is never that simple. The best team often doesn’t win, and this team while brimming with talent, also came into 2011 loaded down with so many built-in excuses for losing (Kragthorpe, suspensions, brutal schedule) it could easily have posted a couple of losses and everyone would have said, “That figures.”
But that didn’t happen. You can thank Leslie Edwin Miles for that.
“I don’t think he gets enough credit for being a pretty smart football coach,” said Mike Gundy, Miles’ successor and former assistant at Oklahoma State. “What you see on TV is not really him at all.”
A lot of Miles public persona is what he wants us to see, and amusing malapropos are part of his props. He doesn’t avoid the spotlight but he doesn’t seek it. I’ve always had the impression had he become a high school coach instead he would have been just fine with that.
Then again, there are miles of ambition under Miles’ hat.
“Don’t let that laissez-faire kind of appearance fool you,” Steve Sunagel, his childhood friend, once told me. “He’ll beat you on the field.”
Miles has done that better than almost anybody ever in the SEC. With a sparkling 24-2 record the last two seasons, Miles’ winning percentage among coaches at SEC schools has risen to a stunning .815, second-best in conference history behind only Gen. Robert Neyland of Tennessee (.829).
“A lot of times he’s looked at for having unusual quotes or the things he says,” senior cornerback Ron Brooks said. “But he’s one of the smartest coaches I’ve been around. He knows what it takes to win. He does a great job with us, making sure we focus on what’s going on with us and getting rid of the outside distractions, reminding this team of what our goals are, and what we have to achieve.”
Leading up to the BCS finale against Alabama Jan. 9, much will be made of how Bama has an edge with Saban having so much time to prepare. They’ll discount Miles yet again.
Miles has done his best job to date to get LSU this far. It would be foolish to bet that he’ll stop now.