Miles had one heck of a ride

Published 7:40 am Tuesday, September 27, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">BATON ROUGE — Even gazing down Saturday as LSU wildly celebrated what it thought was a game-winning touchdown against Auburn, something seemed off-kilter.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Something wasn’t right.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Even before there was any hint that the whole play was a farce, it seemed like somebody had rearranged the furniture.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Gosh knows, we’d seen this scene enough that it should have looked totally natural.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Another Les Miles special — winning a game for no apparent reason.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You could be sure there would be that silly cat-that-ate-the-canary grin and Miles would twist a few more words trying to explain it all in pig Latin.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">How many times had we seen and tried to translate that over the years?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But instead it was … wait a minute, this just doesn’t look right.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And it wasn’t, of course. Upon further review, normal football rules were applied and soon enough it was all sorted out, just another garden-variety clock mismanagement, and it was an LSU loss.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Few suspected at the time that it would be Miles’ final one.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But if Miles loses a game after that kind of tease, he evidently had lost his mojo.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Remember how one year the Tigers and Miles butchered the clock and still won a game by out-confusing Tennessee?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">No more, apparently.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was time for him to go.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s a shame.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But why did he have to be so stubborn? That’s what we all keep asking ourselves. Otherwise he was the perfect LSU coach.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Michigan Man originally from Ohio somehow fit Louisiana like a comfortable mud boot.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So why wouldn’t he update the offense?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Even his harshest X-and-O critics admit he is a great guy and a class act. Miles the person, the face of the LSU program, was beloved by all.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">More than that, he was fun. He was lovable, calculatedly goofy Uncle Les, the guy at the Thanksgiving dinner table telling the corny jokes and pulling a quarter from behind your ear.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Would it have been that hard to add some new wrinkles to the stale offense?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">College football will certainly miss him. LSU will miss him. Louisiana will miss him.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s been one day and I’m already having trouble imagining LSU football without an occasional Les Miles stunt.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Why did he insist on running up the middle so much?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Miles’ LSU tenure ended the same day that Arnold Palmer died.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The great sportswriter Dan Jenkins once wrote of that icon: “I don’t suppose anybody’s ever enjoyed being who they are more than Arnold’s enjoyed being Arnold Palmer.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That was Miles. Nobody ever enjoyed being who they were more than Les Miles enjoyed being “LSU head football coach.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And he was perfect for it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Where else would the fan base notice the odd tilt of his ballcap and turn it into the legend of the Mad Hatter?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If only he had let his offense join the 21st century.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Miles had the half-cocked idea that college football should be fun.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Let other coaches make the stoic walk down the tunnel before a game. Miles was back there shadow-pushing his troops in mock fear that they were about to run over him.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Why couldn’t his offense be that entertaining?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Miles was a force of nature, whether it was munching on the Tiger Stadium turf or mangling the English language.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Admit it, you’re going to miss all that.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But by the time the plug was pulled Sunday, it was time.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It would have been a crime if the henchmen had had their way with last November’s aborted coup.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That wasn’t the time.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sunday with eight games remaining was unorthodox, but it was time.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was probably inevitable from the season-opening game.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It wasn’t that LSU lost to Wisconsin. That happens.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was that after nine months of assuming Miles had been shocked into offensive reality by the fear of losing a job he loved so much, it was not enough to make him really change the offense.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh, in the following games there was some minor loosening up. He even changed quarterbacks, found one that looks serviceable.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it was all Band-Aid tactics on an offense that needed an off-season change of philosophy.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Nothing was really different at heart.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Once that was evident, well, might as well get it over with.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You can’t be week-to-week with eight games still left in the season, and that’s what was about to happen.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Two weeks of that foolishness during last November’s ham-fisted posturing was ugly enough.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Such a shame he couldn’t really change the one flaw.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But he sure was fun while he lasted. And it was a heck of a ride.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody"> </span>

<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress"><span class="s1">twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</span></a>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">

</span>