Like him or loathe him, you have to admit he was fun. (Photo-tdalabamamag.com)

Life Without Les Miles, SEC Just Won’t Be as Much Fun

By: Larry Burton

Like him or loathe him, you had to admit that Les Miles could be entertaining. From the grass eating to the funny way he wore his caps, to the words he just seemed to make up, to the ridiculous explanations he gave to the press. He was fun.

I enjoyed going to SEC media days only to see what swipes Steve Spurrier would take at rivals and what kind of weird things Les Miles would say. With these two gone, suddenly the SEC is just not as fun.

And for LSU fans, life may not be as fun without him either.

He won more games per season on average than Nick Saban did while at the wheel of the LSU program and won just as many national championships.

But we live in a “What have you done for me lately?” kind of world and it’s not a better place because of it. Soon LSU may pay the price for the decision to terminate on of the most winning coaches in American college football. They may go through problems for years to come.

Look at the quagmire that Tennessee has traveled through since thinking Phillip Fulmer had forgotten how to coach. They’re on their third coach since then and still haven’t found a coach that could carry Fulmer’s jock strap. They wanted change and they certainly got it. They’ve sucked ever since and may only this year begun to turn a corner.

Does turning a corner eight seasons later sound like a great reason to fire a winning coach? Vol fans have second guessed ever since and I suspect LSU fans too in the near future.

Yes, not only did the press love him, the students loved him and his players worshiped him. They may not hire a coach that’s won over 77% of his games as Miles did, but they still had to get rid of him.

They loved his recruiting, he was year in and year out one of the best and his student athletes didn’t get into a lot of trouble like other programs. Overall, he ran a clean program, stayed out of big trouble with the NCAA and in many ways, did just what you hoped a head coach would do.

In the end Miles undoing was his reluctance to change his ways offensively. LSU was stuck the 90’s there and unlike Saban, who brought in Lane Kiffen to quicken the pace of the offense and energize the passing game, Miles stuck to the offense that got him to that 77% winning percentage margin and wouldn’t change.

Not even when his bosses told him to change things up or else. It’s hard to know if Miles thought things would work his way or if he was more popular than his bosses. But he learned this week that it’s not about a popularity contest, or the perceived power, but the one who hires and fires.

That meant that Miles was just too stubborn to change, too loyal to can his offensive coordinator and too stupid to realize who really called the final shots at LSU.

But let’s not try and assign blame on who did or didn’t do what and would’ve, could’ve and should’ve been done, but simply say goodbye to Les as the head coach of LSU and thank him for almost 12 seasons of being the entertaining mad hatter of the SEC.

It just won’t be the same without you.

Larry has been published in almost every media outlet for college sports and now primarily writes here for Touchdown Alabama. Follow Larry on Twitter for inside thoughts and game time comments at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter

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