I totally get the buck stopping with the head coach. ok, so let's just pretend for a moment that if any of Les' subordinates make mistake (coaches or players) in the grand scheme of things, it falls back on him. so what i'm asking is: Was the subsitution cluster eff at the end of the Tenn game more Miles or Crowtons fault? I also have a 2nd question not in the poll. if you could only fire one (miles or crowton) who would you fire meaning that if you chose to fire miles, GC would stay on and continue to run the offense in the same capacity.
I'd fire Crowton's a$$ in a second. However, Miles hasn't corrected these problems. He's the HC. At least we've got Lee playing now. Other than that, our offense has had the same issues for a while now - penalties, not getting plays in on time, confusion, dropped passes, etc.
I would have to can Miles. There is so much damn confusion that no one knows who is doing what and you damn sure can't figure anything out by listening to a call in show. Fingers pointing every which a way and all sorts of other nonsense. If I'm AD, I would have met miles at the 50 with his check and said "Thank you coach, these fine officers will now escort you to your car, have a nice day" Then I'd hand the keys to Chief and we would at least know one way or the other who had control of the O for all this time. If it doesn't change at the end of the year GC gets the same treatment. It has been a much heated topic on this board as to who calls the plays. The bottom line is it doesn't really matter. CLM's ass is on the line and it is up to him to do something about it. He hasn't. That is all that matters.
Miles is responsible for clock management, both in terms of being the HC, and also just in terms of having enough situational awareness to step in when he needs to and stop the madness. He failed at that. Again. I'd fire Crowton. There's really no question. He doesn't draw recruits. He's obviously not a great QB coach. He's not been able to have consistent offenses and doesn't seem to be able to develop workable schemes to match his personnel. Miles is far more valuable to the team (even if you hate him) than Crowton.
As much as I don't like Crowton, this one falls squarely on Miles' shoulders. It would be interesting to see if any of Crowton's former teams had similar clock management issues. Who's the resident stats guru these days? Dig that one up, I'm curious.
I voted Miles. The Head Coach is clearly responsible for clock management in the last minute. If he's delegating those decisions to anyone else, the blame still goes to Miles. As far as the 2nd part of the question, I think what is likely to happen at the end of this season is that Miles is forced to fire Crowton and bring in a new Offensive Coordinator. I don't think Miles will be fired at the end of this season unless he refuses to fire Crowton or he makes another highly visible game/clock management blunder this season. Once the new O.C. is in place, Miles has another 1 -2 years to produce better results or Miles will be fired. That's the way I see things playing out...
I coach Little League baseball. I always have guys that help. Let's say I'm in the batting cage working on hitting and one of the asst coaches is working the infield. For one, if that guy doesn't know who does what when the other team is bunting, I have to step in and teach it. If he's taught it wrong, I have to correct him and then the team. If my team plays poorly, it's my fault. Even when they make the same mistakes over and over again, it's my fault. Even if I've gone over it a hundred times.... example - when the pitcher throws a wild pitch with a runner on 3rd, the pitcher is supposed to sprint home and cover. The catcher is supposed to hustle to the back stop, pick up the ball and flip it to the pitcher for a chance to get the runner out. It sounds simple. I have two 11 year olds (oldest 2 kids on the team) on my team right now and neither can remember to cover the plate. I put one in the game just last Thursday. Runner on 3rd, and I told him, "if the catcher misses it you've gotta cover home so we can make that play" .... 3 pitches later guess what happened? Guess what we'll be working on Tuesday at 6:00??? My point - this all falls on Les Miles. He's running the show.
Crowton sent in only one play. It's not his first time at the rodeo either; he knows he's got to send in two plays. He tried to get to cutesy with the final play and it caused all kinds of confusion. Crowton should be fired today. I don't know why the trigger isn't being pulled or if someone is stopping it from happening but he's got to go.
I don't think that anyone should be fired. What I want to hear from the coaches is the admission of the problems we all know about, but more importantly, precise ways on how the problems will be fixed. However, these coaches are so stubborn that they would likely prefer firing than doing this.
