LSU brass’ credibility tarnished

Published 8:19 am Friday, December 4, 2015

At least someone at LSU has broken the official silence as to how in the world Les Miles is still the football coach of the Tigers.

Actually, it came straight from the top.

LSU President F. King Alexander went on the record in the Baton Rouge Business Report to say that a number of factors went into the about-face that changed Miles’ going-away party in a sold-out Tiger Stadium Saturday night into a shocking resurrection in the post-game news conference after a nondescript 19-7 victory over Texas A&M.

Money was involved, yes, but it was more the perception of Miles’ $15 million buyout than the cold cash.

Mostly, it sounds like, it was the public perception — from near and afar, and very vocally in Tiger Stadium that very night — of the way the whole messy ordeal basically blew up in the attempted coup’s face.

Noticeably absent in Alexander’s revelations — which were hardly startling — was any mention of the words Jimbo Fisher.

That makes sense.

I think Fisher was obviously a target to replace Miles and be LSU’s next head coach.

But it never made much sense, at least not for Fisher, for a variety of reasons.

Mainly, though, it’s hard to imagine that, in what would have been a span of mere days, anybody from LSU could have gotten enough of a positive indication from Fisher to go ahead and jump-start the process by leaking word of Miles’ possible demise to the media.

Considering the way the rest of the shenanigans were handled, it’s doubtful that LSU had anything close to a negotiator smooth enough to get such a monumental deal done with a relative snap of a finger.

If he did, of course, it makes it look even worse to barge into with no Plan B.

“It was a combination of factors and a decision that we made collectively,” Alexander told the magazine. “We weighed all the factors in all this and it was a joint decision between many of our board members, our AD and many of us decided this was the wrong time and wrong place.”

Alexander confirmed that the final decision, in a meeting with him, Athletic Director Joe Alleva and some members of the Board of Supervisors, did not come until halftime of last week’s game.

At the time, LSU trailed the Aggies 7-6.

But Alexander also said the decision had “pretty much been made” a few days earlier.

Really?

Funny, but nobody bothered to mention that to Miles, who by then was well into his second week of twisting in the wind and becoming more and more of a martyr which, ultimately, may have saved his job.

There’s little doubt that Miles went through Senior Day ceremonies and took in the adulation of the crowd before, during and immediately after the game under the assumption that he was coaching his last game at LSU.

Either that, or he’s an Academy Award-winning actor, because his body language was saying sayonara right up to the minute Alexander and Alleva pulled him aside for a quick chat between celebrating with his players and talking to the media in his post-game news conference.

Miles said he found out the job was still his “after the game.”

He said it with Alleva standing right by this side.

So it sounds like the pro-Miles backlash that was building in the days leading up to the A&M game and reached a crescendo during it was too hard for the powers that be to ignore.

“A lot of people out there said we had to do something,” Alexander told the magazine. “Half the people said we don’t have to do anything and emotions were all over the place. Somehow you have to not overreact to the emotions and weigh all the factors.”

Money, too.

By all accounts, the LSU athletic department had already passed the hat for the $15 million to buy out Miles and wasn’t worried about coming up with whatever the next coach would have commanded.

Spending it was another matter.

True, it wasn’t going to cost the school (the under-publicized branch that deals with reading, writing and arithmetic) a dime, a fact that was well publicized.

But Alexander indicated that it still wouldn’t look good to be throwing money around like that while he is engaged in a constant battle with the state Legislature to improve funding for Flagship U.

“The public at large really doesn’t differentiate where the money comes from,” he said. “No matter how you explain it, it’s still a $15 million to $25 million decision that needs to be factored into the overall equation.”

In the end, he said of firing Miles that, “Under the circumstances we felt it was not the prudent decision to make.”

Translation: They miscalculated badly.