LSU, the removal of wins, and the Ghost of Les Miles

Last week’s pretty boring week of news was highlighted by news that LSU been forced by the NCAA to vacated all of its wins between 2012-2015 because of benefits giving to offensive linesman Vadal Alexander and his family.

The booster in question – John Paul Funes – gave works to Vadal’s father and mother, who never ended up doing their jobs. Well, James Alexander, Vadal’s father, did five pieces of work for Our Lady Of The Lake Foundation, anyway…and earned over $180,000 over five years for doing so (great work if you can get it!).

LSU had a 37-14 record during that period, going 20-12 in the SEC, and 2-2 in bowl games. Les Miles, the coach of the time, was constantly the source of jokes in and out of the SEC, and he was constantly on the verge of being fired, if Tigers fans are to be believed. Anyway in 2016, after an awful game at Auburn, Miles was indeed given the boot.

What’s so stupid about this rule is that it hasn’t effected LSU in the least. Sure, they vacated 37 wins, but were there bowl bans for the 2024 and 2025 seasons? Nope. Were there scholarship removals.

Heck, Les Miles himself is out of college football. He’s had an acting job, but mostly he’s ‘living’ on buyout money and the considerable finances accrued through his 19-year coaching career.

Joe Alleva, the man who was LSU’s AD at the time of the payments, is still connected to LSU, but resigned from his position in 2019 due to his bad hire of Will Wade, which he said at the time he regretted.

Hell, Ed Orgeron, who got the job from Les Miles, has also left.

THE HALL OF FAME

Seriously, if the NCAA’s removal of LSU wins between 2012-2015 hurt Les Miles’ chances of going to the College Football Hall of Fame, then we’d like to help them with 1001 other reasons.

There has been much talk about the taking away of victories taking down Les Miles winning percentage from .665 to .597, meaning that he wouldn’t be eligible to get in, since he’s .003 under the ‘Hall of Fame Mendoza Line’.

But what hasn’t actually been answered it this: Would he even have deserved to get in?

If you look at his 19 years coaching, he was a middling-to-good head coach, but hardly great. He’s got the 100th best winning percentage in college football (with the penalties, that has sunk to 194th).

He’s won a National Championship, been to another one, and won three SEC West titles.

But by the end of his tenure, he was a defeated man with a sore ass after years of being a permanent fixture on the hot seat (LSU pulled the plug in September of 2018 to avoid having to pay a bigger buyout, but he should have gone in the 2018 offseason). The bad play, clock management, failure to beat Alabama seven years straight  (and 4-14 overall record) and sheer mediocrity finally caught up with him.

Before that, the LSU teams seemed to get by despite Les Miles. His approach to clock management to all kinds of on-field plays was questionable throughout this career.

Does that scream ‘Hall of Fame’, to you?

LSU is equally culpable. They should have fired him in 2013 even before he was banned from being alone with female students after a SCHOOL REPORT investigated him for the aforementioned issues. How could someone stopped by his employer from being near female students keep in employment – especially when he’s the head coach of one of the biggest football coaches on Earth.

Oh, and then there’s the time at Oklahoma State.  There were rape allegations against his best running back at Oklahoma State. Instead of throwing Vernard Morency off the team, he said: “M’eh. No further disciplinary action needed”. His approach to athletic academics at Stillwater were an absolute joke. Then were other NCAA violation allegations that included payments to athletes for jobs they never did, a lack of staff control with regards to drugs, and much more in a report by Sports Illustrated. Although the NCAA investigated SI’s report, they said that the allegations were ‘unfounded’ (then again, when was the last time the NCAA operated off a magazine’s report and used it to smash a team or coach with charges?)

Seriously reporters, if you’re thinking that losing 37 victories is a reason why Les Miles shouldn’t be in the Pantheon of College Football Glory, there should 1001 other ones.