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Saturday, December 1, 2007
Miles finds home at LSU
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Les Miles went to a chapel service Saturday morning and was greeted by players asking about his travel arrangements. “Sounds like you’re catching a plane Monday,” he said, repeating what had been said to him. And that speculation led to a session unprecedented in the 16 years of the SEC championship game — a pregame media briefing by a participating coach.
“It was not a press conference I wanted to have,” Miles said. “But I was embarrassed.”
That famous journalist and former Buckeye Kirk Herbstreit had reported on ESPN that Miles, a Michigan alum, would be named the Wolverines’ coach next week. “An Ohio State plot,” Miles would say much later, at his second news conference of the day, this a longer and happier one. At 8:30 Saturday night, Miles sat behind the dais at the Georgia Dome — he’d stood throughout the earlier session — as champion of the SEC and coach of the LSU Tigers now and presumably for the next decade.
“There’s no wiggle room,” Miles said. “It’s very difficult for me to go somewhere else if I never talk to anybody.”
Miles met the hastily assembled press two hours before kickoff to say he wasn’t going to Michigan, but he never quite said that. (What he said: “I have no intention of talking to anybody else.”) This prompted LSU publicists to bang out a clarification and post it on the school’s Web site, the key sentence being: “Miles will not entertain any offer from the University of Michigan.” Take that, Herbstreit.
Amid all the weirdness, Miles and his Tigers actually found time to win a championship. It wasn’t pretty or dominating — they trailed after each of the first three quarters — but it was enough for Miles to say, “Anybody who saw this game tonight will see that this is arguably the most talented team in the country.”
And it is. It has been all along. But the Tigers still haven’t played to the fullness of their gifts: They outgained Tennessee by 121 yards Saturday only to undercut themselves with nine penalties to the Vols’ zero, and not until Erik Ainge threw two rather silly fourth-quarter interceptions was LSU assured of winning.
That said, it won. For the third time in six years, LSU came to the Dome and saw a backup quarterback — Ryan Perrilloux, furthering the tradition established by Matt Mauck (2001 SEC title game) and Matt Flynn (2005 Chick-fil-A Bowl) — leave as the MVP. It won on one of the strangest days any collegiate team has known since the Louisville Cardinals learned that coach John L. Smith was leaving for Michigan State as they were losing to Marshall in the 2002 GMAC Bowl.
“You look at this team and see a team that will overcome adversity,” Miles said, though much of LSU’s was surely self-inflicted. “And we stand atop the finest conference in America.”
On Friday, Miles admitted he planned to speak with Michigan reps after the SEC title game. What happened to change his mind?
“The school here wants me to stay,” he said, and word is that LSU threw Saban-like money — upwards of $3 million per annum — as a convincer.
“We’ve got a great team. We’ve got a great recruiting class started, and I think we can finish it. I’m not talking to anybody from Michigan, and if I’m going to stay, there’s no finer time to make it known than before the championship game.”
Sure, he could’ve said as much a week ago and spared everyone the drama (and Herbstreit the indignity), but Miles surely made himself a lot of money by waiting. And Saturday night, his decision made, he sounded like a coach at peace with himself and his world.
“I certainly love Michigan,” Miles said. “I will always be a Michigan man. I will wear those colors when it comes to the Ohio-Michigan game, and I will root for the Blue. And they will eventually win that game. … But I’m not going there. It saddens me at times. I can’t be in two places at once. I’ve got a great place. I’m at home.”
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