Nick Saban vs. Les Miles: Best LSU Coach?
Mar 4th, 2008 by gtull1
I wish that it was possible to have a real battle- Nick Saban vs. Les Miles to find out who is the best LSU coach. Wouldn’t it be great to really compare both coaches? I wonder who would win. Here is what a few people told me.
My Dad said that Les Miles is the best. He used to think that Saban was the best LSU football coach ever, but he changed his mind when Saban left LSU to coach the Miami Dolphins. Then Saban left the Dolphins to coach Alabama. My Dad says that he was a great recruiter, but that he can’t be trusted. He would rather have a coach that is pretty good, but that won’t be a traitor. For that reason, he would rather have Les Miles as the coach of LSU.
My Paw Paw in Crowley thinks that Nick Saban is the greatest LSU coach ever. He doesn’t like how Nick betrayed the Tigers, but he thinks that Les Miles is nobody compared to him. He says that Les Miles just inherited Saban’s players, and that his teams don’t show as much control and understanding. He points out how the 2007 LSU Tigers had almost twice as many penalties as other teams in the SEC. He says that’s because they weren’t well coached. For that reason, my Paw Paw would pick Nick Saban to coach the Tigers.
I don’t know. I hate how Saban sold us out. Miles is a little crazy sometimes, but that can be good too. I really don’t know which coach is the best. I also think that the players matter the most sometimes, but I know that it takes a good football coach to recruit and train them.
What do you think?
GEAUX TIGERS!
Kick Nick! lol Love that pic.
I have to go with Miles. Maybe he isn’t the pro that Saban is, but he’s not going to sell us out….. I hope.
P.S. Awesome site here! Please keep this one up. I added your feed. Geaux tigers!
Miles vs Saban? Let’s see here… THEY say Les Miles won with Saban’s players. Fine then. But Saban spent five years in Baton Rouge and only once did he have less than 3 losses in a single season. Miles has never lost more than 2 games in a single season. If Miles won with Saban’s players then I say Miles coached Saban’s players better than Saban did. The won-lost record speaks for itself. If you want to split hairs then Nick Saban won the 2001 SEC championship with Jerry DiNardo’s players. I know how much ole Jerry is loved in Tiger Nation.
Saban’s best three years at LSU (01, 03 & 04) combined for a 32-7 record (.820). Miles’ three seasons at LSU have produced a 34-6 record (.850). The won-lost record speaks for itself.
Saban led LSU into post-season play each year he coached the Tigers. So has Miles. Saban’s post-season record at LSU was 5-2 (.714). Miles? 4-1 (.800). The won-lost record speaks for itself.
National Championships? 1 to 1. The won-lost record speaks for itself.
SEC Championships? Saban-2, Miles-1. However, Saban never had to take a team that had been through Hurricane Katrina and then play games in 12 consecutive weeks either. SECCG appearances? 2-2.
Bowls? Saban was 3-2 (.600) at LSU while Miles sports a perfect 3-0 (1.000) record in bowl games. The won-lost record speaks for itself.
Oh, Les Miles has never lost at game to a Conference USA team. Anybody forget UAB yet?
Like it or not, Tiger fans, it’s all about the wins and the loses. While I admit it’s close the fact remains the wins have come faster under Miles than under Saban.
Oh, and don’t toss me any of that “12 game regular season” stuff either. LSU played two of them under Saban and two of them under Miles. The won-lost record speaks for itself.
Saban or Miles? I’ll take Les’ rough edges and loyalty over Saban’s slickness and disloyalty any day of the week.
I for one am proud of our damn fine football coach… we’ve simply done more with Les. Have a great day.
Well said Clutch!!!!!
Les Miles could have never turned the program around as quick as Saban, but Saban could have never have gotten all he wanted if it wasn’t for Mark Emmert. Emmert was the best thing to happen to LSU football since Huey Long. Emmert was able to deliver the new addition to the stadium, the football complex and the new athletic dorms. This is the foundation for the future of the Tigers.
Les Miles!
Les is the coach who was a bit choked up at both the SEC Champ game, and the BCS Champ game. He enjoys it when the team wins, like most or all coaches, but Les actually cares on behalf of his players. In other words, he ACTUALLY cares about his players and their success.
If you think about the media coverage he gets, the man is not nearly as crazy or weird as they say. He knows his players, knows his staff, and therefore he knows his team-WELL. If you go for it on 4th down 5 times and convert all 5 times-you’re not crazy. You’re confident because you know something that others do not. I think that sports media (in general) reflect the traditional media (in general): OUT OF TOUCH and out-dated.
Just the opinion of an average but very Loyal LSU Tiger fan, who lives in Missouri- but loves his home town of NOLA, and misses Louisiana especially during Tiger Football Season. GEAUX TIGERS.
P.S. I agree-awesome site…please continue!
Thank you for the very nice compliment Dave. We’re trying. lol
I agree. Les Miles really does care about the players. It’s obvious, to me, that he does. great point!!
WILL SABAN DO BAMA LIKE HE DID THE DOLPHINS ??
Saban left Dolphins as a loser, weasel
BY DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com
The punctuation on the Nick Saban Dolphin Error is greasy and greedy. You know what he was as Dolphins coach? A failure. A loser. A gasbag. And one of the worst investments Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga has ever made. He was less of a success than Dave Wannstedt and more of a traitor than Ricky Williams. There has been very little in franchise history that came with more expectations and fewer results than this hypocrite who at the end avoided the hard questions one last time.
Talk like a warrior. Behave like a weasel.
Maybe Saban would be better off in college. Because, in the pros the last few days, he has looked like a complete and utter amateur.
He will be remembered in these parts as a quitter and a liar. He leaves the franchise in last place, with what used to be his good name somehow far lower than that. And for this he’ll get a $25 million raise and more job security in Alabama. Makes you wonder what USC’s Pete Carroll or Ohio State’s Jim Tressel are worth, doesn’t it?
Larry Coker, a decent man, gets fired for his one championship. Saban, a duplicitous one, gets the most lucrative job in college football.
Saban could have fixed his reputation today if he had that mental toughness he is always sermonizing about. We have the meandering spiel memorized by now. About ”competitive character” and ”overcoming adversity” and blah, blah, blah. You preach it, Nick. But you don’t live it. Not when it’s easier to run away and hide.
Miami, 6-10 against an easy schedule, was swept this year by younger teams in its division — the Jets and Bills. The team isn’t better than when Saban arrived, just older. What little winning Saban has done has been with players left for him by Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt. What’s the best decision Saban has made in two years? Can you name one?
So it makes sense that he would lack hope. But when his players are losing, he asks them to be proud and fight and overcome, even though what they do hurts a hell of a lot more than what he does. But now, reputation in tatters, integrity stained, he runs away from this fight — to be a dictator to kids who question less and have less power to challenge him. Of course he’d go. It’s a good deal easier. And a new crowd eager for a savior can hear his hot-air speeches about being a gladiator.
Saban made Huizenga look like a public fool with all his condescending talk of integrity recently, reprimanding reporters at every turn while his agent secretly kept taking slimy calls from Alabama in the shadows. What a raging fraud Saban sounds like today, every bit as counterfeit as Miami’s Super Bowl expectations.
Oh, a man, even one under contract, is allowed to change his mind and listen to other offers, especially those that double his salary. But what makes Saban’s behavior so unctuous recently is that he had the audacity to question the questioners with super-sized arrogance even while lying all along to his players and his boss. Huizenga has given this man everything he has wanted — given him more than any NFL owner anywhere has given any other coach. He deserves better than this. He deserves better than Saban leaving him to answer the hard questions today.
Makes you wonder, too: Huizenga went after Ricky Williams and his money with cutthroat zeal, and Williams is still paying him back. But Saban just broke a contract, too. There are no outs in Saban’s contract to go back to the minor leagues.
Remember how mad you were when Williams retired? Well, he wasn’t cheating on you. He wasn’t grabbing for more money. His body hurt from a beating, and he wanted to rest. What Saban has done is a more traitorous act — the most traitorous act in the history of the franchise. He’s leaving simply because he couldn’t handle a hard job on the sidelines of a game in which he asks others to be violent. He gave up, in other words. And filing it under ”family” now as a diluter, in search of understanding, rings hollow because you can’t believe anything the man says about this situation. You think he’d be leaving if he were 3-13?
Saban, infomercial sermonizer, talked a lot about loyalty and integrity and toughness.
But, in the end, these were not his guides.
They were only the kinds of things he demanded of others.