The Quad has the Tigahs checking in at #7.
It’s standard fare to look at Miles and see a doofus, but his record grows more impressive each season.
… His 34-6 record stands as the finest three-year stretch in L.S.U. history, and the team’s three consecutive top five finishes also marks a program first. Some more numbers: L.S.U. is 15-5 against ranked teams under Miles (meaning the Tigers have played nearly seven ranked teams a season) and 7-3 against teams ranked in the top 10. One of college football’s best late-game decision makers – though some of his strategies may cause premature aging among the Tigers’ fans – Miles has led the Tigers to nine come-from-behind victories in the fourth quarter, including four in 2007…
That is nothing to mock, folks.
They’ve got LSU finishing 10-2 (losses to Georgia and Florida), which I think looks right. After all, that’s what LSU does under Miles, innit?
Get The Picture 
I’ve never understood the whole doofus reputaion with him. He makes some unbelievably ballsy calls, but his teams usually make him look like a genius afterwards.
The fake field goal TD run against South Carolina comes to mind. And of course the game winning TD against Auburn, when all he needed was a field goal. Holy hell.
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I’ll say the same thing I said in my SEC coach rankings for Garnet & Black Attack: If Miles is stupid, then they should find a way to bottle his stupidity and sell it, because there are about 100 other coaches in D-IA who wouldn’t mind giving it a try. I might even buy some myself.
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That there’s funny Doug. He ain’t football stupid, its his press room demeanor (and maybe the heart-attack late calls) that make people scratch their head and say doofus, but he ain’t paid for the press room, but the results he has consistently delivered.
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Maybe, it’s the way he wears his hat?
Or, maybe it’s because he went to Michigan?
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You have to understand why Les has that reputation of giving the press plenty of ammunition for the “dufus” reputation.
Following the Nick Saban days, Les was thought of as being extremely mild mannered.
Picture Nick pacing the sidelines, with the antics he always portrayed. Waving his arms, pointing at players and coaches alike with extreme prejudice. That is just Nick Saban’s way.
Not, envision Les, with that easy smile, watching his players carry out their assignments the way he taught them to play. That laid-back attitude, teamed with the trust he openly displayed for his team with his gutsy gambling decisions, left the players with a positive “we are capable” frame of mind that usually got results.
The first couple of years were cluttered with way too many “We want Nick Back” fans, just as Florida suffered in the post-Spurrier days.
These days, what with Nick reporting to the hated Crimson Tide, and Nick’s negative LSU statements about anything Cajun or South Louisiana, the majority of Tiger fans are glad to see him gone, and extremely happy that Les Miles is in Baton Rouge instead.
LSU unknowingly rid themselves of the “Dufus” after the 2004 season, and got the real winner in his place…disguised as he was as a cross between Elmer Fudd and comedian-movie star Steve Martin.
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