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BATON ROUGE, La. -- You've seen him before. He's the guy who flashes across the screen at midnight when the ad rates are cheap, selling you everything from used cars to Ginsu knives.
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| All the major play calling Les Miles took somehow worked out for the Tigers. (Getty Images) |
Just like those crappy Japanese knives that slice through soup cans.
"I know it may appear from the sidelines that, 'Oh, this guy has lost his mind,' and that might be true," Crazy Les Miles said, "but the truth of the matter is we are operating with a set of circumstances and criteria that are in flux."
At some point this season, Leslie Edwin Miles morphed into that midnight carnival barker. The seemingly conservative, tight-lipped LSU coach veered off the tracks onto a dark path that could have easily gotten him roasted on the spit of public opinion.
Instead it got him to the BCS national championship game against No. 1 Ohio State. And a warning to the world from LSU's loving hordes: Fear the Hat.
A series of decisions that were -- at best questionable, at worst potentially season-ruining -- have defined LSU's season. And they gave us a glimpse of what percolates below that trucker hat now traditionally rocked by Miles on the sidelines.
Judge for yourself:
• The Fake Field Goal Game.
Playing in the middle of a tropical depression on Sept. 22, LSU kicker Colt David was deemed reliable enough to run 15 yards for a touchdown on a fake field goal in a 28-16 victory over South Carolina.
"It was definitely a surprise to us that it worked that well," tailback Jacob Hester said. "I don't know if that will work that well again."
The obvious irony was that Miles had outsmarted Steve Spurrier, the man who earned his nickname (Ol' Ball Coach) in part for fooling SEC opponents for 15 years.
"They executed it perfectly," said Spurrier, doing everything but doffing his visor. "Give those guys credit for that."
• The Fourth Down Game.
Five fourth-down gambles, all successful, were the basis for the 28-24 victory over Florida on Oct. 6. Miss any one them and it's hello, Capital One Bowl. But that's Crazy Les. Three of those gambles came in the fourth quarter. Two came on the game-winning drive. The final one on fourth-and-short from the Florida 7 with 2:10 left, eventually led to Jacob Hester's game winning plunge with 69 seconds left.
"That was a game for the ages," defensive end Tyson Jackson said. "At one point it wasn't even about football anymore. The game was about if we could prove that we had a heart the size of our bodies."
• The What Was He Doing Game?
"I think about that all the time," receiver Demetrius Byrd said of the game-winning touchdown pass he caught with one (1) second left against Auburn on Oct. 20. "To me, that was a turning point of the season."
For any other team, yes. For LSU, just another midnight infomercial. Miles spent the postgame and weeks since the 30-24 victory defending the risky pass call. He wasn't arguing just against critics, but also decades of football common sense.
Hello? A 39-yard field goal from the reliable David would have sufficed. Instead, Miles yielded to offensive coordinator Gary Crowton who had gotten a signal from the sidelines from Byrd.
"I waved my hand up to the press box to let him know that, 'I'm open over here on this side. Single coverage,' Byrd said. "I told him I'd be there for you."
When the play was actually called in the huddle, part of Byrd couldn't believe it.
"I was like, 'I've got to make this play to get open.'"
The ball was snapped from the Auburn 22 with eight seconds left, thrown by quarterback Matt Flynn with five seconds left, and caught by Byrd with that single tick remaining.
No, worries, Miles rationalized. The situation wasn't as dire as some thought, he said. The timekeeper let three seconds tick off after Byrd caught the ball. There was still that precious second left, anyway, to kick the field goal.
Yeah, but one second left? Isn't that cutting it too close?
"It was unspoken," Flynn said. "When I came to the sideline he just kind of said, 'Good job.'"
"To tell you the truth I thought we were going to play for the field position for Colt to kick a field goal," Hester said. "I looked at the clock and I couldn't believe it."
"I don't think it was that unusual ...," Crazy Les said. "I just think that we are overanalyzing."
• The Saban Bowl.
The Tigers overcame 14 penalties, three interceptions and whatever residual Nick Saban issues they had to win in the fourth quarter for the third time in four games, 41-34 on Nov. 3.
With the game headed to overtime, LSU's Chad Jones sacked and caused John Parker Wilson's fumble that was recovered neatly on the Alabama 3. Seconds later Hester ran in the game winner with 86 seconds left.
"We'll never play that poorly again," Miles promised.
Of course, they did, 20 days later against Arkansas, but why ruin a good story?
Like the man says, it's all circumstances, criteria, flux. Whatever.
Coaches like to think their profession is so complicated it takes a PhD. (which few of them have). More mortals can't possibly understand the intricacies. Crazy Les has given us a different message: Go for it.
"There is less gamble and more of a legitimate opportunity for victory that is taken into account," Miles said.
Makes sense and begins to explain the man who made a survivor of LSU, the first two-loss team to play for a national championship in the BCS era. Maybe it's not Crazy Les, just Quirky Les. The man won't shut up about his love for Michigan, but now that he is safely in the fold at LSU for seemingly years to come, what does it matter?
"I have a Michigan background," said the former lineman under Bo Schembechler. "That will never change. I will be loyal to that memory and that school."
How many coaches would have bolted off the team bus before a conference championship game to address a report that they were leaving for Michigan? Miles did exactly that last month after ESPN reported he was taking over the Wolverines.
He didn't have to. It just felt like the right thing to do. Two hours before meeting Tennessee on Dec. 1, Miles uttered those now-famous words: "I'm the head coach at LSU. I will be the head coach at LSU. I have a championship game to play. I'm excited about the opportunity of my damn strong football team to play in it."
Those winning-with-Saban's-players whispers are long gone. You don't compile a 33-6 record (the best start by an LSU coach) without knowing what you're doing.
Not enough is made of the Miles' guidance of the program through the Katrina disaster.
Witless critics want to focus on a 30-27 overtime loss to Tennessee in the 2005 home opener but consider what the man, the team and region had been through. Blowing a 21-0 lead in the middle of that emotional cauldron should hardly be a consideration.
Surviving the whims of nature and man, LSU has become one of the powerhouses of this decade. Three SEC titles, two national championship berths, one national championship. Saban started it but wouldn't it be weird if Miles, the ultimate Michigan Man, was the guy who left the lasting mark?
By midnight on Monday, we'll know more which seems just about right for Crazy Les.
"If things go the way they're supposed to go and it's decided in the third quarter, we'll be happy," he said. "But things never seem to go that way."