What a great post. Though I am not a coach's kid, I have been a Miles fan for a long time, and have supported him in posts here. But even I have reached that point where members here like @TwistedTiger and @shane0911 are saying what I feel now. TwistedTiger hit the nail on the head for me. And yes, Miles is a good man. The kids love him, and he's loyal. But that stuff will only get you so far in winning (or at least reaching) championships. The only thing he needs to change is some decisions. I support the tigers. I don't go to the games because its more enjoyable from my house on the big screen with family and friends all around. But I haven't missed a game since probably 1999 or 2000. We have some good kids on the team, and some good coaches on the staff. At some point though, I had to agree with folks here about Les. Love the man, not so much the coach. I wish he would coach our Tigers on the level I see other teams coached... he would be damn near perfect if he did.
See, the real conflict is because a few of us saw it long ago. We didn't want to be right but we were and we knew it and were chastised for it. Yet when it comes full circle and we don't have enough room on the boat...well you get the picture. Of course we love the Tigers, just called it like we saw it.
Back then, most of us gave miles a pass in '08 & '09 due to the National Title victory and the Perrilloux circus. Most of us weren't ready to see him leave until after the abortion of the '11-'12 National Championship game. Mostly because we went undefeated up to that point, but knew some kind of change was going to have to take place. Usually, it was all "well Saban would've done this gobble gobble slurp" or "that one time we lost Miles shouldn't have done this or should've done that". There wasn't a real reason for the total doom and gloom back then. Now, with that said, everyone that WAS total doom and gloom was right. So, yeah, it just took some years for us to load our shit up and jump on the boat, but if you're really honest with yourself, you can kind of see what took so long.
No more miles is just as good as saban at least. Or better even I used almost choke myself out accidentally when reading that shit. You have some still saying Les did better. Is this program better off than when Les took over? No its not. He did maintain it longer than I expected. But the decline is measurable now.. Maybe we can rebound this year.
As the schedule still has more challenging games ahead, the Etling switch may prove to be too little too late. He should have been in the game much sooner, getting experience and gaining confidence. We could very easily see a JJ/JL situation repeat itself here. A rebound would be nice though.
This is a great point, because we weren't ready to see him leave either, we just knew what he was. It wasn't until it was clear he wasn't going to change.
i was in tiger stadium last weekend and some dude was looking at this site. didnt recognize the forum name but noticed some of the posters. so im back after some dark years. not that anyone noticed i was gone.
