Math doesn’t add up in Chavis story

Published 10:11 am Friday, January 9, 2015

No, I don’t know who Les Miles is going to land as the next LSU defensive coordinator to replace John Chavis.

Presumably he will find one in due time and the Tigers will somehow manage to field a varsity next season.

As long as the Tigers continue to recruit NFL-bound defensive players, this coordinator-to-be-named no doubt will succeed.

But you know the coordinator spot is important because the salary is certain to be well north of a million dollars a year, it is threatening to make Twitter explode and, just as telling, Miles is looking to get it filled immediately.

He’s not crazy about multi-tasking this time of year. A run-of-the-mill position coach opening will normally be put on hold during recruiting and addressed when Miles can give it his full attention after national signing day, the first Wednesday in February.

Already at least one sitting coordinator, Penn State’s Bob Shoop, has gotten a healthy raise by apparently raising a furrowed eyebrow at the potential rumored prospect of leaving his native state to head south to LSU.

This is seen in some circles as a spectator sport.

But while the search and the Internet speculation continues apace, something somehow doesn’t add up — or, at the least, Chavis’ leaving LSU for Texas A&M in the first place doesn’t quite make sense.

There are numerous “explanations,” but it’s hard to shout “Voilà!” and put a stamp of approval on any of them.

There is also the awkward manner and timing in which the departure played out.

Chavis was about as popular of an assistant coach as there has been for a fan base as demanding and occasionally fickle as LSU’s is.

Then again, so was Nick Saban, head coach division, as long as he was actually at LSU.

Now it would appear that Chavis is destined to get the “Saban treatment” from LSU fans whenever the Tigers play or even think about Texas A&M.

There will be revisionist history written, all of it inflamed by the two-thumbed way in which he left.

Two things stand out, neither of them thumbs.

It has come to light that A&M coach Kevin Sumlin phoned Chavis moments before the Tigers took the field in the Music City Bowl against Notre Dame.

It surely wasn’t Chavis’ finest game-day performance, but that “distraction” probably looks worse than whatever real effect it had on Chavis’ coaching that day.

It does seem pretty brash on Sumlin’s part — seemingly shattering an “unwritten rule” of rivalry etiquette — but apparently all is still fair in love and the SEC.

What was Chavis supposed to do, not answer the call of what he apparently already knew was his future boss?

Less forgivable is that he left without a word to his loyal LSU players about it.

The Chief, as they called him, was a consummate “players’ coach.” They would run through walls for him.

When he showed up, all smiles, at Texas A&M the day after LSU’s bowl loss, several took to Twitter to express their disgust that a guy they’d put so much faith in could leave them without so much as a hug or a goodbye, let alone an explanation.

And maybe it wasn’t the classiest exit, but it’s certainly not the first in big-time college athletics.

The jilted players will get over it.

But, more than a week later, it’s still tough to connect the dots that got him from LSU to Texas A&M.

Certainly there did not appear to be any problems between Miles and Chavis.

You can point to Miles’ finger prints on the LSU offense all you want — you’d be wrong, but that’s OK — yet there’s no question he stayed out of Chavis’ way with the defense and let him have his own little kingdom.

Have you ever heard an assistant coach have anything cross to say about working under Miles? Even those Miles has fired?

Miles spent the night following the bowl loss back at the hotel desperately trying to change Chavis’ mind.

There’s the incriminating quote — “I’m excited to play with a great offense,” Chavis said after arriving in College Station.

But if he fled because he really was sick of trying to cover up the Tigers’ offensive woes, it conveniently forgets that the previous year most of the finger-pointing was directed at the defense while the offense was setting records.

Why didn’t Cam Cameron throw his arms up and quit then?

Besides, playing defense in concert with those up-tempo, pop-gun offenses presents a whole different set of challenges.

Money? Maybe. It wasn’t a groundbreaking raise he got — $1.33 million to $1.66 million — and maybe LSU was standing firm with the minimal raise it proposed.

But it doesn’t seem like enough to justify the hassle of moving.

The “clause?”

Part of his proposed extension from LSU, it stated that if Miles wasn’t the head coach, the school would only be obligated to pay off six months of whatever was left of Chavis’ three-year deal.

It’s been widely reported as the biggest thorn in Chavis’ side, which makes no sense.

Really?

For one, what are the odds Miles is going anywhere in the next three years?

Two, it couldn’t have been that big of deal ­— for either side — that the problem couldn’t have been negotiated away.

Maybe it was nobody’s fault.

Maybe the man just needed a change of scenery.

l

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com

(Associated Press)

John Raoux