From Stewart Mandel, SI.com
Now that Saban has won another national championship in the SEC, and LSU has continued down its long slide toward mediocrity, who is more on the hot seat: Saban to win another national title or Les Miles to win?
-- Pearce C., Baton Rouge, La.
Miles -- and it's not even close. We're about to find out just how quickly a coach can go from national championship (2007) to the firing squad (2010?) in the SEC, because right now we're watching
every LSU fan's worst nightmare play out:
Alabama is turning into the kind of program LSU might have become had Saban never left, at the expense of the Tigers. I've been a big Miles fan in the past, but he's lost a lot of his luster the past two years. LSU's slide to 8-5 the year after the title season was forgivable considering how much turnover the Tigers endured that offseason (including at quarterback). This year's 9-4 season seemed more disappointing both because of the Tigers' offensive ineptitude (they finished 112th nationally) and Miles' repeated game-management blunders.
There's still plenty of talent in Baton Rouge -- but it's young. LSU is only a year removed from landing Rivals.com's No. 2 recruiting class, and a lot of those guys are going to have step up to help fill the void left by veterans like
Ciron Black,
Charles Scott,
Brandon LaFell,
Trindon Holliday,
Chad Jones and
Harry Coleman. You know Miles must be feeling the pressure when the school's AD,
Joe Alleva, felt compelled to write one of those
"state of the program" letters to LSU's fans. "Improvements are already underway," he wrote. "We will work hard in the off-season to make the adjustments necessary to compete for a championship in 2010."
Miles' record at LSU, by the way, is 51-15.
Neither. LSU's has talent equal to Bama. Bama was lucky to beat Texas. TX QB doesn't get hurt they beat Bama by 20.
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