Les Miles: Worst coach of a ranked team in football

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

It must be maddening to be an LSU fan. It must be even worse being the person that writes Les Miles' paycheck.

Throughout his tenure with the Tigers, Miles has been scrutenized for his terrible calls and especially for his lack of ability to manage a clock. But to this point, he's been able to dodge bullets and hasn't given LSU any real, tangible reason to fire him.

After Saturday's gift win over Tennessee, Miles made another Matrix-like bullet-dodging move, thanks to an illegal substitution penalty on the Vols. For those of you who didn't see it, with about half a minute remaining in the game, LSU was stopped on the Tennessee two-yard line with no time outs. Miles sends players in for a late substitution and runs one final play, which ends up being a bad snap to the quarterback on a rushed play that ends the game. Only it didn't end the game. Tennessee, in response to LSU's substitutions, made subs of its own and ultimately puts more players on the field than it took off. That gave LSU one more chance, which they took into the end zone for a touchdown.

Miles' stupidity was trumped by the stupidity of another coach and as a result, LSU doesn't drop in the AP poll and actually gained a spot in the USA Today rankings.

But Miles' bosses have to be looking at him extremely skeptically. He's wriggled his way out of situation after situation that could have led to his termination, but this game is possibly the last straw. How many more times is LSU going to allow him to take his team to the brink? Even one loss in such an embarassing fashion could lead to the unemployment line.

Chris Maza is the owner of the Maza's Musings sports blog. Check out this post and others at http://mazasmusings.wordpress.com.