The perfect bounce of that oblong football on a botched trick play was pretty damned lucky.... but maybe his luckiest moment was being the only coach in BCS history with two losses to play for the BCS Title.
I hope I live long enough to understand why some folks consider Miles a great coach. He coaches at a school where the academic requirements for athletes consist of being able to eat gumbo with a spoon and he fields some of the most awesome physically talented players you'll find on one team. He coaches like the guy at the blackjack table who is gambling with his mother's social security check.
Sid, after the first pass it was 2nd and 2 at I believe their own 48 yard line. So he had two downs to make the first down and at the very least run time off the clock. While not a sure thing I think two downs to make the first down running is a very high probability. George, last year against Alabama in the Championship game Miles played way to conservative. He is an enigma and I think his play calling is hard to understand.
Exactly Bill, they should be able to make 2 yards in 2 plays and even if they don't they run clock and force Clemson to use at least 1 of their timeouts if not 2 of them.
Bill, you cannot assume that LSU would have made the first down. If you're going to pass to keep possession, the best time to do it would be on 2nd and 2. If you don't make the 1st down, the defense has the advantage on 3rd down that they didn't have on 2nd. Clemson was ready for the pass on 3rd down. Clemson was in the LSU backfield all day. Face it. Rather than a bad coaching decision, it was bad execution by the LSU QB. My objective in this discussion is not to defend Miles. It's to look objectively at the situation and assess what happened. It's easy to criticize Miles after the fact, but to do so without assessing all the factors is nothing more than second-guessing. We'll have to agree to disagree. Terry.....second-guessing based on an assumption. Let me stir the pot a bit more. What if he runs the ball, forces Clemson to take one or two timeouts, and doesn't make the 1st down? He punts the ball to Clemson. How do you know that Clemson would not have advanced the ball in the remaining time to kick the field goal? You don't. Like I said, Miles was trying to maintain possession and keep the ball out of Clemson's hands by passing on 2nd down, when it was not expected. When it didn't work, he tried it again rather than risk getting stopped short of the 1st down in a run. Second-guess all you want, but more often than not, reasonable coaching decisions fail because of lack of execution, not because the decision was "stupid."