Les Miles' Record at LSU

David Wunderlich by Senior Writer Written on July 01, 2008
Miles_feature

Recently I did an analysis of Urban Meyer's record at Florida, even though he's only been there for three years. It's not long enough to make lasting conclusions, but it's enough to get some general ideas about what has happened and where he's going.

There is another coach though who joined the SEC at the same time, yet is overshadowed by Meyer when it comes to discussions of the conference's best coach.

He has been to one more conference title game and has a national title, too. But rather than be singled out by name for excellence, he's almost always lumped in with the group of the five SEC coaches who have won a national title.

Life has certainly been interesting at LSU for Les Miles.

His hiring was widely questioned, and for good reason. His best record at Oklahoma State was 9-4, he came into Baton Rouge off of a 7-5 year, and his reputation was mainly built on two improbable upsets of Oklahoma.

Shortly before his debut, Hurricane Katrina struck and football became the least of anyone’s worries in Louisiana.

Despite the adversity he led his 2005 squad to a 10-1 regular season, losing only in overtime to Tennessee in a game postponed by Hurricane Rita. After losing the SEC title game to Georgia, his Tigers hammered the Miami Hurricanes 40-3 in the Peach Bowl in a delicious bit of ironic symbolism.

Even after winning the 2007 national championship, some doubters still remain. Many of the stars of that 2007 team—guys like Glenn Dorsey, Matt Flynn, Jacob Hester, and Early Doucet—were Nick Saban recruits.

That 2007 team also lost two games, leading some to point out that, “You can’t spell Les Miles without two Ls.” On top of that, the architect of his fearsome Tiger defenses, Bo Pelini, has left to take over at Nebraska.

Whatever you think of his time before joining or his future at LSU, you can’t help but be impressed by the records he has posted there so far. His 2005 game against Appalachian State has been omitted in keeping with the policy of only analyzing I-A competition.

Here it is broken down by site:

 

Les Miles at LSU
Site Wins Losses Totals
Home 18 2 20
Away 11 3 14
Neutral 1 1 2
Bowls 3 0 3
Totals 33 6 39

 

The neutral site games are SEC title games.

A winning percentage of .850 over three years is impressive no matter how you slice it. The three bowl wins are more impressive when you consider they were by 37, 27, and 14 points. Both of the home losses came in overtime games, and the two road losses in 2006 were to Florida and Auburn teams that combined to go 24-3 on the year.

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written on July 01, 2008 Stats

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