On Saturday, LSU's Jordan Jefferson made the inexplicable decision to spike the football with only one second remaining in the game. Spiking the football ended the game and negated two miraculous Milacles: first, Les Miles' Tigers recovered an onside kick and then they completed a 46-yard Hail Mary. In his postgame news conference Miles claimed that he didn't know who had instructed Jefferson to spike the football. "I do not know who told him to clock [spike] it," Miles said. Except, you guessed it, Miles himself was displaying his uncanny acumen by calling for the ball to be spiked with one second remaining on the clock. That's something that you can clearly see on this video after the jump. And yet another reason why LSU fans are still staring morosely at the waters on the bayou, shaking their heads, drinking Jax beers, and cursing the day that Les Miles didn't leave for Michigan.
Earlier this season we put together a list of Les Miles' ten most improbable success stories. We branded these Milacles. In his first three years at LSU, Miles went 34-6, won a national championship, racked up an impressive 19-5 regular season record in the SEC, and won games in such an improbable fashion that you came to believe that the laws of football physics didn't apply to him. After he won a national championship despite two losses to inferior teams, I wrote a column calling him the biggest idiot to ever win a national title in college football.
Some LSU fans took offense to the characterization. I stood by my opinion. I love Les Miles, I hope he coaches at LSU for two more decades. If only so I can get texts like this soon after I sit down at the Tennessee-Vandy game. "Les Miles, you won't believe it!"
Believe what?
There is almost nothing Miles could do on a football field that would surprise me. From coaching without pants -- Miles: "I believed that my knees needed a brisk air to further legitimize our offensive prowess" -- to Miles going for two when an extra point would win the game. The totality of the football universe is truly at play when the Mad Hatter hits the sideline.
Slowly, though, word spread around Neyland Stadium from one fan to another about the end of the Ole Miss-LSU game. Everyone began shaking their head in tandem. "LSU spiked the football with one second left," a portly man behind me told his seatmate.
"That's Les Miles," the other man retorted.
Indeed, Miles has been a wild card on the sideline since he famously attempted to call timeout after LSU intercepted Tennessee in the fourth quarter of his first game as Tiger coach. Sadly, for Miles, the clock stops on the change of possession. Fortunately for him, no one saw him in that game attempting to call a timeout. Unfortunately for him, no one on the LSU sideline saw fit to call timeout with the clock running and fourth down looming against Ole Miss.
Last season the bloom appeared to be off Miles' fleur-de-lis. He and the Tigers lost as many SEC games in 2008 as they'd lost in his first three seasons combined. Cajun hearts collectively skipped a beat. But Miles, with typical self-confidence, brushed off doubters and asserted that 2009 would bring a return to championship-level football.
He was wrong.
What's worse, the harebrained schemes that served Miles so well early in his tenure, such as passing into the end zone with one second left on the clock against Auburn, are beginning to backfire. Cue the Ole Miss game, a new chapter in idiocy.
Last weekend, New England's Bill Belichick came in for an awful lot of criticism for his fourth-down call against the Indianapolis Colts. But at least Belichick realized the significance of his gamble. Miles has never been that self-aware about the perils he's narrowly avoided in his years at LSU. Some coaches steadfastly analyze risk and reward before making a steely-eyed gamble. Miles doesn't even realize the stakes when he takes his risks.
Amazingly, that's worked for him. Primarily, one supposes, because his talent level has been vastly superior to his opponents. No longer. Now LSU fans, staring down the barrel of an 8-4 season that would follow an 8-5 season, are beginning to fear the worst.
As well they should.
Let's break down Miles' errors at the end of the game in numerical format:
1. First, Miles allows seventeen seconds to run off the clock after a loss of yardage on a third down completion.
This has to go down in the annals of coaching as one of the dumbest mistakes any of us have ever witnessed. Can you imagine what being an LSU fan was like as those precious seconds ticked away? How about an Ole Miss fan, suddenly daring to dream that your most hated out-of-state rival might allow the clock to die before he even attempted another play?
Whatever you do, don't buy the fact that someone for LSU called the timeout and the officials didn't notice it.
In these situations the officials are always watching the sideline for the barest signal of a timeout to be made. They're expecting it.
All of us were.
If you're the head coach you have to run halfway to midfield frantically making the T signal at the very moment your player goes down in a heap on the field.
Anything less is pure idiocy.
That's for a coach on any level. But especially for a man making almost $4 million a year.
2. After the 17 seconds tick off, there are only nine seconds remaining and you're facing a fourth-and-26.
You've already made one error but now coaching, more than anything else, becomes an exercise in decision-making. You have to answer the following question first:
How many plays can you possibly run in nine seconds if you have to gain at least 26 yards on the play to convert the first down?
Two, at best, right?
And that's potentially pushing it. Because you know that the play is going to take a while to develop if your receivers have to run that far down the field to gain the first down.
But you need to be prepared for that opportunity.
So if you convert that play you have to get your field goal team ready, right?
3. And if you don't want to run your field goal team on, you absolutely, positively, have to call two plays during that timeout, right?
Because maybe you decide that running the field goal team isn't your call.
You know that, at minimum, you have to move the ball to the Ole Miss 22 to convert the first down. So why not go ahead and call a second play that sends every receiver into the end zone assuming that you're going to be in the neighborhood of 20 yards from the goal line?
Sure, it's not ideal to make that play call in advance given that you don't know exactly what yard line you'll be on. But shouldn't you go ahead and set that up?
Again, that's if you've rejected the field goal ploy.
During that timeout you could gather the entire team around and make a play call for fourth down and the ensuing play call. Maybe even pull Jefferson aside and instruct him that he can only ground the ball if there are at least two seconds left on the clock.
Even though that's something that should have been drilled into his head already.
4. Also, at this point, keep in mind that the clock stops on a first down to move the chains.
This is one of the most glaring aspects of this situation. It's not like the clock was ticking down. It was completely stopped!
So, unlike the NFL, where running a team on the field with this amount of time remaining isn't an option, you actually have plenty of time to run a field goal unit onto the field if they're properly lined up should the pass be completed.
Which is what should have happened, ultimately, after the completion. The field goal team running onto the field is the correct decision.
But I would still have given Miles a passing grade if LSU had been prepared to do anything at all after the completion.
5. What I'm getting at is this: you don't even have a lot of decisions to be made here; if you're fortunate enough to complete the pass, then that success can't disorganize you.
The situation that would ensue after the completion is completely predictable.
You, me, anyone with a moderately intelligent sense of football can completely forecast all of the possibilities that could ensue in the final nine seconds of the game.
6. The pass is complete and gains 46! Les Miles, evidently unable to convey the situation to his quarterback, calls for the spike play with one second left.
7. Only, unlike college basketball, there is no tenths of a second on the college football clock. It's impossible to snap the ball with one second left and spike it without the game ending.
Now, as you saw from the above linked video, Les Miles is arguing he has no idea how Jordan Jefferson, his sophomore quarterback, chose to spike the football.
Except we all know the answer: Les Miles instructed him to spike the football.
Why?
Because while the rest of the SEC coaches are playing chess, Miles is playing tic-tac-toe.
And he'd lose in that to many fifth-grade LSU fans.
Ultimately this game against Ole Miss is the perfect flip-side to the Auburn game in 2007. As the clock ticked away in that contest, Miles had no clue how to formulate a strategy and luck was on his side.
Against Ole Miss, Miles had no idea how to formulate a strategy and fortune didn't favor him.
Maybe the Milacles are finally dead.
C'est la vie in Baton Rouge.
Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Clay, you are a bigger idiot than I thought. I would never want you representing me as an attorney, nor as a journalist.
You have failed to do your job (again) by looking at the facts, instead, breathlessly hopping online to write a scathing article on some viral piece of poor journalism from elsewhere online.
Fact:
The video your are using as the basis of your argument has been spliced out of order to fit the original "journalists'" intentions.
Fact:
At around the 1:25 mark, when Miles is supposedly signaling to his QB to spike the ball, pay attention to what's happening on the field. You'll see that an Ole Miss defensive player is holding the ball above his head, trying to suggest that he has recovered a fumble. That was the play before the spiked ball incident -- the pass completion to the six yard line. The Ole Miss DB tried to strip the ball from the LSU receiver on the tackle. Miles is signaling to the ref that his receiver was down before the ball came loose.
The first part of the video, starting at approximately the 28-second mark, is the confusion of the last play as the chain gang is getting the chains set. You can see Miles on the sideline making a kicking motion - suggesting that he was calling for the FG unit.
His only fault was assuming another one of his staff members called the time-out, which he thought they did.
So much for those little things called "facts".
You are a disgrace to real sports writers around the world. Not sure how you get access to write such crap. You should be yanked for a college student who probably had more integrity than you ever have.
That is all.
1. After a loss of yardage on 3rd down, LSU allowed the clock to run down to :09 before calling timeout.
2. During this timeout, the LSU coaching staff prepared their players to run a play on 4th & 26.
3. It can be assumed, for it is plainly obvious, that the LSU coaching staff did nothing to prepare their players for the possibility that they might succeed in obtaining a 1st down on the 4th & 26 play.
4. After LSU caught the ball on 4th down, the LSU receiver was clearly on the ground with :03 left. The LSU coaching staff failed to notice that 2 more seconds ran off the clock and did not bother asking the officials to correct the clock, which would have bought LSU some time to figure out what to do next, which shouldn't have been necessary (See #3 above).
You say that Miles' "only fault" involved when a timeout was called? That's funny.
I'm sure the conversation during the timeout went something like the following:
Miles: "Men, you're a damn fine football team. I want you to forget about everything that happened before this play, and I want you to not worry about what's gonna happen after it. Nothing else matters but this one play. Now get out there and play your ass off, and whatever happens, happens. Let 'er rip!"
TOO: Get The Facts..
I watched the replay over several times and Miles is saying to spike the ball...
NOTICE SOMETHING....
As he is doing so you can "CLEARLY" see the 10 yard line the players or around...
That was the call he made then to my seeing the flim.. I could have cared less who won they are both SEC teams and so either one was ok to win..
Spike The Ball.. Quote On His Tomestone.
Miles you need to go what a traiter or just plain stupid.
Miles you are a traiter or just plain stupid
It is obvious that the LSU coaching staff made some mistakes at the end of the Ole Miss game.
Name me one coaching staff that never makes any mistakes.They all make big ones at one time or another.
Les Miles has proven his ability to coach at the highest level of college football. LSU lost that game due to multiple shortfalls, the greatest of which was Jefferson's lack of mobility due to injury.
Miles is a great coach who ultimately bears responsibility for his staff's errors.It is journalistic trashiness to call a proven winner like Miles an idiot.
On the other hand, Clay Travis is a idiot. AOL, why not end your association with your worst sportswiter?
Les Miles is overrated and so is LSU. Miles was winning with Saban's players. LSU will continue to decline because Miles is simply a "good" coach but not great. Okie State was glad when he left.
For the last 2 years we have had to put up with the fact that Les Miles does not have a clue about time management in a football game. It has cost him dearly as well as every LSU fan over the past 2 years. Maybe with LSU not getting a BSC bowl game this year they will give ole Les the boot because to have so suffer with him as our HC for the duration of his extended contract is unthinkable in my book.
Even more disgraceful, is his statement that was just played on ESPN that he actually was blaming Jefferson for calling the spike of the ball when it was clearly Les Miles who called it. Be a man Les, and accept the blame and not put it on your players. All year they have played and it is you and your coaching staff that has consistently fallen short time after time.
Michigan, if your sick of your coach, you can have Les Miles.
What concerns me the greatest here are two things: First, the tape has been spliced and has been harvested from another source of journalism. If you are going to beat up on the coach or the team at least do so in a manner which is characteristic of the SEC. Please note the word character in this previously used word which is apparently a challenge for you to understand. You make the statement that Les is the epitome of idiocy (paraphrase mine). Oddly, I never heard these comments when we were heading for the BCS Championship Game. What I did hear however, was how Les Miles once again had no character exemplified by the fact that he was entertaining leaving the Tigers and going to Michigan when nothing was even remotely true about the story. Even when he was interviewed on National Television in a Press Conference while indicating that his heart was here in Baton Rouge the naysayers spun the story otherwise. While I realize that this game allows you to be a hero or a zero the realities of his performance do not lie. He took us to the National Championship. He has several SEC Championship titles. He has the highest percentage of wins than any other coach. So, why all the gloom, doom and despair. Could it be that you just have not gotten over Saban leaving the team. And by the way, I am sick and tired of hearing how Miles inherited a BCS Championship team. While it is true he had inherited the physical attributes of the team he still needed to win over the emotional attributes; no easy task when a team loses their coach whom they had come to love and adore. My second beef is the message of instant gratification which we send to our children. A person does not perform for a few seasons and automatically you want him gone. I have to tell you that it is this issue which concerns me most as we send the message that loyalty does not matter any longer. Charlie (Can't get the team there) Weiss as a possibility? Keep on dreaming! What you do need to focus on is why every single time I watch a game there are more and more fans out of the stadium partying. The stands look absolutely pathetic. I should think a great dose of an anti-fair weather fans would assist in this endeavor. Where is your whole hearted support? Does it only kick in when we are going to the National Championship or do you feel our team is entitled to the BCS Championship every year. If so, you may want to consider the pressure placed upon this team and Coach by the multitude of the fans expeditiously leaving the game early. Just my thoughts! In conclusion I think all of you need to leave Les alone. He knows there has been a screw up in this game and even accepted that fact. I am quite sure he does not have to hear it over and over ad nauseum.
I have a question(excuse my ignorance) but wasn't the clock going to start anyway once the chains moved and if thats the case is it not likely that LSU could not have gotten a field goal kick off in time? The timing on that would have been very difficult. I suppose it is theoretically possible. Anybody?
Les Miles has done A LOT for LSU FB and I don't think this one error (although it's a BIG ONE) should be the ONLY thing that LSU fans should think about during the tenure of Les Miles as their HFC.
I'll admit to being an unabashed Ole Miss fan who was at the game and will gladly take the win but I'm surprised that two things haven't been brought up. First, if you Tivo'd the game and watch the replay, before the ball is snapped to Jefferson for the spike, the back judge is signaling that the game is over since the referee had already wound the clock. In other words, it doesn't look like they ever got the play off anyway. However, if I was an LSU fan I'd be more upset about the play calling on the last drive than the timeout/Hail Mary/spike fiasco. They had the ball 1st and 10 within field goal range and instead of running up the middle two times to set up the spot, calling time out and kicking a field goal they threw an incompletion into the flats, called a slow developing pass play that ended in a sack for a ten or so yard loss and then, after a timeout, some kind of bubble screen that lost another ten yards forcing them into the Hail Mary. That sequence was more telling of Miles' ineptitude than the last two plays.
As good as LSU could be,Les Miles will manage to lose at least 2 games a year.
Uh, you can't run 2 plays on a 4th and 26 to get a first down, because it's 4th down. Still, some poor coaching though.
I have been saying for the past three years that les miles need to go. He cant coach in the sec, maybe the wac. He started showing his talent or lack there of when all of sabens players were gone. Please fire him mr birtman please
Stop crying LSU you guys just aren't that good this year. It's ok, everybody goes through it. You wouldn't even have a NC if it wasn't for the BCS bullsh!tt@rs handing you a win with Ohio St.
What happen to all those LSU fans who were saying Miles is a better coach than Saban ? Saban has a 2-1 record against Miles and has outcoached him in all three of those games
Jax Beer? Come on..you're not old enough to get away with that reference.
I guess the Oklahoma State Cowboy Fans can stop feeling bad/betrayed/ripped off from Les Miles leaving them holing the bag a few years ago. After this time management stunt it seems they are better off.