If Les Miles Gets Canned, Would LSU Go For Butch Davis Again?

Larry Burton (Panama City Beach, Fla.) In 1999, Gerry DiNardo was losing his grasp of the LSU team and he was fired even before the season was over. LSU Chancellor Mark Emmert and the powers that be at LSU went shopping for a coach. Butch Davis was at the top of their list.

Emmert and his crew met with Davis at a small airport in South Florida only to have water dumped on their fire to hire him.

At that meeting, Davis told the group of his intention to coach in the NFL and sure enough, one season later, he left the Miami Hurricanes to take over the head coaching job at Cleveland for the Browns.

Like many in the college ranks who think the NFL grass is greener, Davis became disillusioned in the pro game. His years of being an NFL assistant under former Hurricane coach Jimmy Johnson at Dallas should have showed him that it might not be true, but he saw himself a younger version of Johnson who could rise from the college head coach ranks and run an NFL team right to the Super Bowl.

However, with only one winning season out of four and a sub .500 NFL record, it was clear that Davis belonged back in college football where he had achieved success.

Davis came back to college football in North Carolina where he turned a very down program around, much like he had done with the Hurricanes years earlier.

For the past two seasons, he has guided UNC to an 8-4 record and two straight bowl appearances. With good recruits now taking the field, this is expected to be an even better year for the Tar Heels.

Should Les Miles once again disappoint the faithful at LSU, would LSU come looking for Davis a second time?

Davis certainly has the ego to think he can come in and compete with Nick Saban and the SEC and he certainly has shown he can and does recruit well.

Combine that with the fact that even Davis knows that 8-4 is a darn good record for a school more interested in basketball than football and that even a BCS bowl would still have him second fiddle to the basketball program, why wouldn't he look yet again toward bigger and greener pastures?

Should Miles stumble just a little more, then the Tar Heel fans should get nervous, very nervous, that LSU may take a run at Davis one more time.