Fieldy'sNuts

September 28th, 2016 at 1:34 PM ^

I'm not sure where this fits in the timeline of every relevant event, but here's an article dated Saturday 1/8/11 quoting LSU's athletic director saying Michigan had not contacted LSU about Miles:

http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/lsu-issues-statement-on-football-coach-les-miles/

Hoke's hiring was announced on 1/11/11:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/sports/ncaafootball/12colleges.html

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Blue Durham

September 28th, 2016 at 1:57 PM ^

The LSU AD could only "know" second-hand at best, which means he really doesn't really know anything. He probably got his information from Miles himself, while Miles is trying to leverage for more money. Now this AD looks bad, and is probably trying to justify all his previous actions by making it look like LSU was on the verge of losing Miles to Michigan.

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Alumnus93

September 28th, 2016 at 1:26 PM ^

I call BS.... all that does is make LSU look like a better job.....     Miles had a good thing going down there.. that is a top job, and you can CHEAT, family established, etc......  why make a lateral move?  This isn't, say, TCU.

Word is that Les played Brandon as a backup, had his team laid an egg in the championship game, and/or to gain leverage.

 

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TrueBlue2003

September 28th, 2016 at 8:00 PM ^

coach in football at the time. Remember, he turned down Alabama the year before.  They dodged a serious bullet there and were willing/able to hire Saban instead.

Les was hot but wouldn't have been ahead of RR on most other teams wishlists. If he was ahead on our wishlist, it was because he is a "Michigan Man".

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Alton

September 28th, 2016 at 2:05 PM ^

Because Miles was given a good raise by Bertman at LSU at the same time the Michigan vacancy opened up.  There is little doubt that Miles or his agent used the Michigan opening to get him more money, and the person at the other side of that negotiating table was Bertman.

I imagine that he feels the need to justify his actions in 2011.

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mGrowOld

September 28th, 2016 at 2:21 PM ^

Whenever you're faced with conflicting stories always see who has the most to lose.  On one side you've got people associated with Michigan who Bacon knows who tell him it never happened.  They have nothing to gain or lose on the story either way.

On the other you have the LSU AD who, if Bacon is correct, got played big-time by Miles & his agent for a big fat raise using this mystery offer as leverage.  And if that story is true he looks like an idiot .

The truth of it is though the LSU AD probably DOES believe Les got an offer cause that's what Les & his agent told him.  So neither side is actually lying.

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4yearsofhoke

September 28th, 2016 at 2:00 PM ^

I respect Bacon and understand he has some great sources in UM's athletic department, but the one thing is his sources will do the best for their job/organization. I don't think Bacon honestly EVER thinks his sources are lying to him, which is a tad annoying (the same with plugging his book constantly, but I understand that too).

Also, Brandon is an assclown, but he's not a completely stupid assclown. There is no way in hell he'd pick Hoke over Miles if he had the choice in 2011. Remember 2011 was 5 years ago and Miles was a PRIME coach.

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Alton

September 28th, 2016 at 2:10 PM ^

Circumstantial evidence suggests that there were, in 2007, some internal forces working very hard against Les Miles.  We've all heard rumors about why that might be the case(and those rumors seem pretty silly to me), but whatever the reason it was clear that there were people pushing very hard against Les Miles inside the athletic department, although Bill Martin seemed to be neutral on him.

It's wrong to think that those people weren't there in 2011, doing the same thing again.  I think those were the people pushing hard for Hoke at the time, and those people had Brandon's ear much more than they had Martin's ear.

 

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xxxxNateDaGreat

September 28th, 2016 at 2:38 PM ^

I also think that Brandon would have wanted someone a bit more "green" and tractable in the coaching department, who liked to publicly proclaim his love for Michigan and would be more than grateful at the opportunity Brandon had afforded him. IIRC, Hoke was extremely accomadating to Brandon and it got him thrown under the bus. Les, having had four top ten finishes and a title in his (then) 6 years at LSU, would have probably not been as open to many of DB's attempts to be more involved with his football program.

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Yeoman

September 28th, 2016 at 6:33 PM ^

...there's always been some suspicion around that Miles's dealing with others are sometimes...how to put this?...less than honorable. The oversigning, the odd way that last-minute greyshirt decisions were communicated to players, the comments from former players about "academics" at OK State. It's not impossible that some people that worked with him at Michigan already had some inklings that that's how he'd operate, and wanted nothing to do with him. I'm not sure they were wrong.

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Alton

September 28th, 2016 at 2:40 PM ^

We did look very closely at Miles, but it seems like those anti-Miles people in the AD were successful in keeping him away from Michigan.  Here's an account gleaned from Bacon's book:

http://mgoblog.com/diaries/how-not-run-coaching-search-look-back-2007

Miles pretty much told Mary Sue Coleman on December 7 and again on December 10, 2007, that he would accept the job if offered...but not before the bowl games.  

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