A fairly weird press conference yesterday with Les Miles, producing no real answers on his future. But seasoned observers of LSU football say there were plenty of indications he's an unemployed man walking.
But folks, let's stop saying he's getting fired. When you get $15 million to leave your job, it's not called "fired." It's called "winning the freaking lottery."
Scott Rabalais of the Baton Rouge Advocate said Miles had the look and sound of a man preparing for the end. It can be dangerous to draw such conclusions based on body language alone, but Rabalais has a solid and credible reputation so it's highly doubtful he's relying on that alone to inform his position that Miles is done.
For a coach who has been so embattled almost from day one, so second-guessed, so subject to such withering criticism, Les Miles took on a new persona Monday:
That of the sympathetic figure.
Miles was asked during his weekly Monday media luncheon — by all indications, his last such gathering as LSU’s football coach — what it’s meant to him for he and his wife Kathy to have raised their four children in Baton Rouge over these past 11 years.
Someone told me recently that Miles has so come to embrace this community, a community that hasn’t always embraced him back, that he had designs on retiring here one day. That was before his job was moved to the firing line in the midst of what is now a three-game losing streak by three double-digit margins, the worst such slide for the Tigers since 1966.
Still, Miles said, “This is home.”
It was heartrending, really. Emotion has always been part of the Miles’ appeal, his M.O., his calling card, really. That he spoke Monday with a general calm tone and even managed to break into an occasional, if wan, smile was the body language of a man who knows his fate has already been decided. A man who decided to take the high road and keep his eye on the task that is Saturday night’s regular-season and perhaps career finale against Texas A&M.
The stats that matter in the apparent Miles departure are these:
13-10 in the SEC the past three years; 8-9 in the SEC West over that time.
I'm not going to sit here and say LSU is crazy to run the guy off. Not informed enough on the particulars of that situation, and there are unique nuances to every situation.
But man ... 68-percent winning clip in SEC games. Do you know how hard that is to pull off, particularly in the SEC West? Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier combined to finish below .500 in the SEC during their time at South Carolina, and almost no one would have predicted that back in, say, 1998 had you told them that the Gamecocks would get those two coaches over the next 15 years.
More from Rabalais:
LSU has been to this brink before with Miles, only in a different context. Three years ago, Arkansas came looking for Miles to take over its program before it eventually hired Bret Bielema. LSU gave Miles a fat new contract with a gigantic buyout that now means it’s obligated to pay him $15 million if it terminates him before Jan. 1. Reportedly, this would be the second-largest buyout in college football history (Notre Dame is about to cut the last check on Charlie Weis’ $18.9 million buyout). Indications are this still isn’t a sum large enough to make LSU and its deep-pocketed boosters swallow hard and decide to roll with Miles for another season.
It was good leverage Miles had in his corner then, having just come off a 13-1 season in 2011 even though it ended with the dud of a performance against Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans. But Miles has no such cards to play now, not after his team went 8-5 (and 4-4 in SEC play) last year. Miles was even unable to get the clause erased from former defensive coordinator John Chavis’ contract (Chavis is now at Texas A&M) that said LSU can stop paying Miles’ assistant coaches after six months if he is terminated.
Miles may have been a sympathetic figure Monday and may continue to be. But football is a game, and big-time college football especially, where sympathy has little room at the table. LSU is going to make a move and has to pull in a superstar name — and maybe increase the stakes ever higher.
Hey, it's not like $15 million is that much these days. For the cost of Auburn's new jumbotron, you too can buy out your highly successful coach!
A few Tuesday links:
-- The Washington Post takes a deep dive into athletics spending.
●From 2004 to 2014, the combined income of the 48 departments nearly doubled, from $2.67 billion to $4.49 billion. The median department saw earnings jump from $52.9 million to $93.1 million.
●After a decade marked by surging income, 25 departments still ran a deficit in 2014. Twelve departments, including Auburn and Rutgers, actually lost more money in 2014 than in 2004.
● While some athletic programs have eliminated or reduced mandatory student fees earmarked for sports, other programs are charging more than ever. Students paid $114 million in required athletics fees in 2014, up from $95 million in 2004.
Athletic directors at money-losing departments defend their spending as essential to keeping pace with competition. Their programs benefit universities in ways that don’t show on athletics financial statements, they said, like media exposure that can cause increased applicants and help fundraising.
“This is a competitive race among some of the biggest universities in this country to compete and achieve at the highest level,” Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Hermann said.
-- At Virginia, David Teel writes that Mike London likely knows his fate.
If Virginia coach Mike London knows his fate beyond Saturday's season finale against Virginia Tech, he didn't let on Monday. Indeed, London adroitly ducked a direct question about whether he and his bosses have had "the talk."
Chances are London knows. Either athletic director Craig Littlepage has told him directly that Saturday will end his six-year head-coaching tenure here, or he knows from basic intuition.
Five losing seasons in six years? Countless have been fired for less. Syracuse turfed Scott Shafer on Monday after two losing records in three years. Miamiditched Al Golden a month ago, midway through the fifth season of a tenure in which the Hurricanes have endured one sub-.500 year. And let's not even get started with soon-to-be-former LSU coach Les Miles.
Granted, programs have varying resources and expectations, but given the cut-throat world that is major college athletics, and given his own coaching missteps, London is fortunate to have lasted this long doing what he loves and drawing a seven-figure salary.
And the beauty is, he knows it. Sure, falling short is tough on your family, friends and ego, and London would sacrifice plenty for another season or two. But among London's many strengths are a keen sense of self and an abiding faith in a higher power.
-- A group of ultra-successful, ultra-paid sportswriters complain about "bloggers" who spout opinions from afar without doing actual boots-on-the-ground reporting.
What a minute, isn't that exactly what they do on Pardon the Interruption?
Mike Wilbon, Kornheiser’s co-host on “Pardon the Interruption,” gave a hypothetical example to make the same point.
“What bugs me now is that people is that people sit in their mother’s basements and write this crap and they don’t have any knowledge of what is going on in that place, and it’s too easy to get it,” Wilbon said. “You can go to a game, you can go to a locker room. The only reason to read this stuff is to tell people why something happened, and if you’re not there, and you can’t tell me why it happened, I don’t care about all your advanced analytics and all the other things you concoct.”
Christine Brennan labeled the practice “hit and run journalism” because the authors of the critical content don’t face the consequences a beat writer might after writing something negative about the team they cover. The “fly by night” authors don’t have to worry about athletes freezing them out in the future because they don’t need to maintain contact with them in order to write stories about them. Brennan said the style of reporting cannot last, and that it will be the hardworking journalist who will eventually win out in the long run.
Not that they don't have a point. But ... holy hypocrisy.
Actually I write from my own basement now...
-- Pete Thamel of SI lists five things to watch in what promises to be a riveting offseason coaching carousel.
Interesting subplot here:
5. Two names have transformed their realities more than anyone in 2015: North Carolina's Larry Fedora and Navy's Ken Niumatalolo. Since we did our preseason coaching carousel breakdown and our midseason edition, there has been some obvious volatility. But Fedora and Niumatalolo have changed their trajectories the most. Fedora went from the hot seat after Carolina's historically inept defensive effort in 2014 to a coach so hot it may be surprise if he stays at North Carolina. (At the very least, he deserves a raise for coaching the Tar Heels through NCAA limbo to a 10–1 record and an ACC Coastal Division championship.) The market is so robust that Fedora could end up in a variety of places, as he has also had success as the head coach at Southern Miss and an assistant at Oklahoma State and Florida. (If Fedora had this caliber of season last year he'd likely be the head coach at Florida.) Fedora won't be the top target of a school such as Georgia, LSU or USC, but in this chaotic climate he could end up finding an upgrade from North Carolina in a top-tier job in a top-tier conference.
As for Niumatalolo, he has led perhaps the best Navy team of this generation to a 9–1 mark. (Its only loss came at Notre Dame in a competitive game.) The Midshipmen can clinch a spot in the American Athletic Conference title game with a win at Houston on Friday. Navy is the highest-ranked team in college football's Group of Five conferences and could snare an automatic bid to a New Year's Six bowl. In a muddled year for coaching hires, Niumatalolo offers a distinct offense, comfort with academic standards and the capacity to win at a nontraditional power. Don't be surprised to see interest from Virginia, Maryland or Iowa State, as he has won 65% of his games in eight full seasons at Navy. (Oh, and he has never lost to Army.)
-- And, courtesy of subscriber TGRDEES1985, we close with some thick funk from a band called Turkuaz:
LW
