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Freeman: Miles dumb? Get smart, people
LSU coach Les Miles is lucky the BCS national championship game isn't a board game between the coaches. If they were playing checkers, Ohio State's Jim Tressel would quadruple-jump Miles into submission. If they were playing chess, Miles would ask to play checkers.
I don't think Les Miles is very smart. Sorry, I don't. He doesn't look smart, for one thing. He could have been the lead character in Sling Blade. His eyes are too close together. I bet I could jam a thumb over the bridge of his nose and poke both pupils.
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| You're darn right Jim Tressel has the upper hand in this coaching matchup. (AP) |
At some point the game between these two evenly matched teams -- easily two of the top four teams in the country, behind Southern Cal and Georgia -- will come down to a coaching battle of wits, and that's simply not fair. Tressel is cold and calculating, a coaching reptile. Miles is a nitwit.
Here's what I know, and it's all I need to know: Miles risked this entire season, and his entire reputation, on the Michigan job. That thing came open at a bad time for Miles, a Michigan alumnus. There's no question about that. The timing wasn't Miles' fault, but what happened next was.
Miles clearly had people negotiating with Michigan on his behalf, even as LSU was preparing to play Tennessee in the SEC Championship Game, and when the Miles-Michigan dalliance hit the media, all hell broke loose in both states.
Every day was a disaster, media asking players if they were distracted and Miles trying to play it cool and Michigan smugly carrying on as if it had its next coach -- Les Miles -- in the bag.
Somehow LSU overcame the distractions created by its head coach, beating Tennessee for the SEC title and, lo and behold, a spot in the BCS Championship Game.
You ask me, LSU got lucky that day. LSU won't get lucky against Ohio State, and it has nothing to do with the talent. On a player-for-player basis, LSU probably has more speed and skill than Ohio State. The recruiting rankings over the past four years would say so. The 2008 NFL Draft scouting reports would say the same. Ohio State has talent ... but LSU has more.
But when it comes to coaching, LSU has Les.
Which means Ohio State has more.
You know how I feel about Les Miles. Now let's discuss Tressel.
The man doesn't make mistakes, anywhere. He can be boring off the field and his teams can be boring on it, but Ohio State doesn't beat Ohio State. Tressel simply won't let it happen.
He knows how to milk the 60-minute game clock better than any college coach I've ever seen, a skill that's hard to define with words but is easy to recognize with eyes. It's a lack of panic. It's an abundance of patience. It's complete trust in his players that they have been meticulously prepared to win the game, and that at the end of 60 minutes, they will do just that.
Watch this game unfold. You'll see what I mean. There will come a point in the game for each coach to do something dramatic. Les Miles will fall for it, taking an unnecessary risk because he thinks that's what a good coach does. It might even work, because after all, LSU does have all kinds of talent. Tressel won't succumb to the moment. He will make the moment succumb to him.
Back to my original point on Miles and his handling of the Michigan job, being unable to control the story to the point where the story could have consumed him and his team. That would never happen with Tressel. How do I know? Because it never has happened with Tressel.
Don't be stupid. Don't think that, in an absence of stories linking Tressel to this job or that one, that it hasn't happened. You don't think another college powerhouse or, more likely, an NFL team has called Tressel about becoming its new coach in the past several years or even the last several weeks? Please.
Tressel, and Urban Meyer of Florida, are the best two coaches in college football. The two most complete packages. Those guys could win at a big school, at a small school, and in the NFL. They're that good, and everyone in the business knows it.
You don't think an NFL team has tried to pry Tressel from the Buckeyes? Sure it has. Only you never hear about it because Tressel wouldn't stand for it.
Unlike Miles, whose ego or ignorance or naiveté allowed the Michigan story to go haywire, Tressel won't allow it. He's smart enough to understand that his situation -- whether it's a career move or an in-game coaching decision -- is best served if he is in complete control.
Miles hasn't learned that. He's too easily controlled, a puppet who doesn't know he's a puppet, and he'll be controlled Monday night. Jim Tressel will be holding the strings.