What about Jim Tressel at Youngstown State? 1991 12-3 1992 11-3-1 1993 13-2 1994 14-0-1 1995 3-8 They should have fired him, right? 1996 8-3 1997 13-2 1998 6-5 Now they should fire him, right? 1999 13-2 2000 9-3 2001 -- takes over at Ohio State, where he wins one National Championship and five Big Ten Championships
We have a whole thread on it, where we have been discussing this in the last couple days: http://www.tigerforums.com/showthread.php?t=78956
Whats the point of listing all these records with the comment about the coach being fired? Nobody is saying that Miles should be fired. This isnt even an argument among fans or board posters. I dont understand what point you are trying to make.
Just because Coker lost control of his team and Miles hasn't yet doesn't mean a comparison can't be made. I like Miles as a coach but sometimes the play on the field makes him look boneheaded. Yes we've had 3, 12-2 seasons with an SECC a Sugar Bowl romp and a NC win in the first 3 years under Miles... BUT it's easy to do with the talent level left to him and to see how it would be impossible not to be successful with what he was left unless he just decided to not show up to work. In our first season without Pelini its obvious he was a huge loss to the team. In a so called rebuilding year we're 7-4, and unless our coaches come up with a miracle we could realistically be 7-6 at the finish of the bowl season. So an analogy of Coker could be made by the decline in the success of the LSU program... but it'll take another 2-3 seasons to tell to really tell for sure. At the game Saturday it was a little obvious that the team is struggling with its identity and has lost a little swagger and enthusiasm... if he can't change things around some how, it won't be hard to lose control of the team out right.
Scroll up and look at all those great coaches I listed that lost control of their teams, and then returned them to greatness. Why do I keep hearing Les Miles compared to Larry Coker, when I never hear Les Miles compared to any of those great coaches I listed above that fell into slumps just like Coker did? Well I take that back, there is this huge Bama fan I know pretty well that said recently that Les Miles reminds him of Bear Bryant. But other than that, I can't remember hearing anybody compare Les Miles to any of those great coaches listed above that fell into slumps just like Coker did, yet I hear the Miles-to-Coker comparison on a pretty frequent basis. Why the pessimism regarding Miles?
Well for one he wasn't all that impressive at OSU as a coach, not sure if having UT and OU in the same division was a reason... but he wasn't a dominate coach. And i'm not not sure that he fit in at LSU all that well but he won his 1st 3 seasons here, but needs to find a way to right the ship so to speak fast or we're looking at another long season next year. I hate the arguement that Miles won his NC with Saban players... but in truth he really did. And a year after with now a majority of HIS schollie athletes... our play is embarrassing to a point and we seem content on running on 3rd and 9 or throwing from our territory on 4th and 10 miles or attempting long passes on 1st and 2nd downs and then throwing 6 yards short of the 1st down markers on 3rd downs. Just seems that we're happy with 3 and outs and letting our D play 40 of the 60 minutes on the field. His inability to be a nasty coach and continue putting points on the board when we have the opportunity is also frustrating... seems once he's ahead by 7 he's happy just playing keep away... we need to start running the scores up when we have the opportunities as we all know "style" wins does count for final placings.
I basically lost interest in responding after reading this. Back when we hired Miles, I was very impressed with him. Then i found out that one of my closest friends wasn't impressed. So I send him the bio of Les. He still isn't impressed. So I wrote him this whole analysis arguing to him why Les Miles is a great coach, a great hire by Skip. He reads it and tells me that I have convinced him. Then we lost to Tennessee, when they came back and beat us from being down 0-21, and my friend went right back to thinking that Les Miles was not impressive. I think a lot of people really heavily on their own personal first impressions, and if their own personal first impression of Miles was that he wasn't impressive, then they will pretty much always feel this way.
Yeah that first response was to feelings I had when he first came to LSU... after 3 seasons he's proved me wrong. Even after this season i think Miles has shown me and others a lot... and I trust him as he is the HC for a reason to make the changes needed to correct our issues from this season. I do get frustrated at times, and have said some things that were in the heat of the moment out of those frustrations... but over all i'm happy he came to LSU... he's done great things here. But I also think another season or two will tell volumes about his abilities to a greater degree.
