Realizations

It occurred to me during the LSU/Florida game when they ran the stats of the top 4 winningest coaches over the past 6 seasons.

Urban, Mack Brown, Peterson and Miles.... Impressive company.

So then I started wondering, what IF we, as a fanbase, b*tch and moan too much? Shouldn't all that matters is "winning"? Now, I'm guilty at times of expecting/demanding more. But when will we ever be satisfied???

Miles is an exceptional recruiter. Starting all the way back with RP. He's brought in solid recruit after solid recruit and he's run a clean ship. If you're not willing to abide by the rules set before you, then you're gone (Matt Allen, RP, Odom, Zhamal Thomas)...doesn't matter how good you are...or THINK you are. Miles is the ANTI Urban in this reguard and I applaud him for it.

The Ole Miss debacle last year was unacceptable for any coach. The Tenn. game 2 weeks ago was also upsetting. So I'm NOT making excuses for those blunders/near blunders.... but at the insisting of seeing the man FIRED?? Well, how can you fire the 4th most productive head coach in college football over the past 5+ seasons????

For all the positive qualities in a coach, there's bound to be some negative ones as well and sometimes you have to live with the bad in order to benefit from the good.

Urban may be a better game manager, but he tends to let the inmates run the asylum.... You may be one of those that doesn't care how much a player gets into trouble so long as he's able to set foot on the field come game day. But I'm not one of them. I want to win, but I want to win with class and win with players who are good people on and off the field.

Miles may not be the best game manager out there. He may even make it unbearable to watch sometimes. But for every time someone out there has said, "We do THAT against better teams and we're going to get beat BADLY", well, the bottom line is that at present time, THAT hasn't happened yet.

All Miles has done is keep winning. We're acting like a mob tired of having the same mistakes cost us games when the reality is that we haven't suffered from many setbacks (except Ole Miss of course).

So, yes, we can get angry at certain calls/decisions. We can be upset about time management. But fire the guy? When he'll have 60+ wins since '05?!

Unless our offense continues their current trend (they've been effective the past two games and minus the turnovers, would have scored even more), I'd be welcoming to an OC change. But I'd like to see how our offense does now that we've had a few solid outtings under our belt.

Well, I'm off my soapbox for the moment... Recognize the over-all success of the program and look to change parts within first, NOT the entire engine.

 

Excellent post. I couldn't agree more.

 

Can't argue with your philosophy. I think emotions run high during the blunders, but I would hope that by an large, Tiger Nation feels just like you do.

 

Yep...

We realized the defense was pretty bad in 2008 so we went out and got a pretty good DC.

Right now we realize that the offense is pretty bad soooo.....

CLM is our coach/CEO....problem solved :wink:

 

IMO, one "off year" in terms of statistics from either the offense or defense is unfortunate.

Back-to-back years is cause for concern.

3-straight of the same is a trend and if you want to remain a top 15 team from year-to-year, you can't afford 3-straight years of poor production from either side of the ball.

So, like I said, unless Crowton's play-calling produces more games like this past week, then I'd welcome a change.

 

As they should. But, after the win, let it go.

 

Texas and Florida are not undefeated and ranked in the top 10. THAT'S the difference.

 

Agreed. Didn't Florida AND Texas lose back-to-back games? Reguardless, they've both lost twice and the season is at it's halfway point.

THAT's the natural progression of fan unhappiness....NOT when you're 6-0.

Again, you can win the game and still be upset at various things:
1.) how close the game was
2.) coaching decisions during the game
3.) the play of certain players

So venting about such things are acceptable. No one is tephlon. Vent when it happens or in the days immediately following. But we're a group that complains weeks after; years after, and always want the same blanket solution: Fire Miles!

 

I think a lot of it is that Miles is an extreme coach. Not just regular extreme.. he's extremely extreme.

Miles is the college football equivalent of Neo. He travels throughout the College Football matrix as he pleases and defies all of the rules that coaches are supposed to be bound by. He doesn't dodge bullets because he doesn't have to. He's not the kind of coach that just follows the flow of things and does things like every other coach. He's out of the box, and sometimes we think he's out of his mind. It's not bad or good, just extreme. Part of what goes along with this is that when he makes (seemingly) strange decisions it drives fans nuts if it doesn't play out right. But when they do work out, it drives the rest of the country crazy because "you're not supposed to be able to get away with that kind of decision making"... But he does again and again, making the sports media look like idiots, and I like that.

I've been a fan of his since he got here, and in that time I've disagreed with some of his decisions on multiple occasions. I don't know why he does some of the things he does, but it works for him more times than not and I've given up trying to defend or understand it. But I love the fact that he runs a tight ship, draws in top notch talent year after year, and encourages academic performance as well as on the football field, and for those reasons I like him as coach.

Are fans' expectations too high in general? Sometimes I think they are, but that's just part of the passion for LSU football people have down here. Nobody wants to go back to mediocrity, but on the same token, we're simply not going to win 10, 11, 12 games every year. We're not going to beat Florida, Bama, Auburn, Ole Miss, and Arkansas every year.. Show me a coach that has.. We're not going to win the SECCG every year either.. If it were that easy, all the SEC teams would be doing it. Somebody has to lose and from time to time it will be us.

The problem is LSU fans have tasted greatness 2 times in the last decade, and they just want more of it. Nothing wrong with that, but we still have to keep our feet on the ground and realize sometimes, despite your best efforts, it won't happen. Just like despite Urban Meyer's impressive coaching resume, etc.. he's 3-3 against Miles when most would tell you Meyer should beat him 99/100 times.



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