Alabama Crimson Tide

Why it's baffling to think LSU could part with Les Miles

Published Nov. 18, 2015 7:00 p.m. ET

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Stewart Mandel

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Stewart Mandel's Nov. 18 Mailbag. For his full Mailbag, click here, and to submit a question for next week, email Stewart.Mandel@fox.com.

Dear Stewart, LSU fan sites are already posting lists of coaches most likely to replace Les Miles. What are the odds of this happening? Also: How do you think LSU will finish out? Did playing 'Bama break the Tigers?

-- Will West, Hewitt, Texas

I was ready to completely mock this question until The Baton Rouge Advocate's Scott Rabalais, as connected as they come on the LSU beat, wrote a column Tuesday night saying "strong indications are that he [Miles] will be coaching for his very job" these next two games against Ole Miss and Texas A&M — which seems absolutely baffling. But then again, there's been a faction of the LSU fan base calling for his head nearly every time he's lost a game there the past 11 years, and particularly since that galling 21-0 loss to Alabama in the 2011 BCS title game. Twitter is hardly a representative gauge of public opinion, but when I retweeted this article Tuesday night I got back a whole bunch of responses to the tune of "It's time for him to go."

Be careful what you wish for, LSU fans.

Miles has won nearly 70 percent of his SEC games and finished in the Top 20 in all but two of his first 10 seasons. Furthermore, he's sitting on the No. 1 recruiting class in the country and will bring back Leonard Fournette, Malachi Dupre, and a host of other stars in 2016. This is hardly a broken program. In fact, I seem to recall LSU reaching No. 2 in the playoff rankings ... what was it? ... Oh yeah, that's right. Two weeks ago!

Get a grip, people.

As for the last part, LSU managed to mask deficiencies on its offensive and defensive lines against what turned out to be a fairly light first seven games and is being exposed now that it's facing more physical opponents. It could run into the same problem this week against Ole Miss. And yes, it's possible that Alabama broke the Tigers, because it's been doing that all year. Outside of Arkansas, seemingly every SEC team it's faced laid an egg shortly thereafter. It takes more than a week to recover from A'Shawn Robinson and Jonathan Allen.

Stewart Mandel is a senior college sports columnist for FOXSports.com. He covered college football and basketball for 15 years at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter @slmandel and Facebook. Send emails and Mailbag questions to Stewart.Mandel@fox.com.

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