To put an exclamation point on how close Les Miles came to losing his job at LSU -- and what a cluster(bad word) officials at the university allowed the situation to become -- the president of the university is confirming the bizarre details leading up to the Mad Hatter’s retention.
In an interview with the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, LSU president F. King Alexander confirmed that “the final decision on Miles’ future did not come until after a halftime meeting during the Nov. 29 game against Texas A&M.” Alexander also stated that the decision to retain Miles had “pretty much been made” a few days earlier, even as the speculation in the days leading into the A&M game was decidedly leaning toward it being Miles’ last with the Tigers.
Alexander stated that finances -- Miles would’ve been due $15 million, plus the cost of buying out his assistants as well as replacing the entire staff with a new one -- and public sympathies played into the decision to keep Miles. “We weighed all the factors in all this and it was a joint decision between many of our board members, our [athletic director Joe Alleva] and many of us decided this was the wrong time and wrong place” to dismiss Miles, the president said.
While public opinion may have played a role in the swaying, it appears that a figure approaching $25 million was the primary motive as Alexander kept circling back to that aspect of the situation in his interview, even as it was previously reported that the money would not be an obstacle if a change was to be made.After the type of budget battle we went through this past spring we certainly do not need to be throwing tens of millions of dollars around under certain circumstances,” he says. “We don’t need to go into the next legislative session with a black eye that we’re throwing tens of millions of dollars around on issues that aren’t associated with academic progress.”
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“The public at large really doesn’t differentiate where the money comes from,” he says. “No matter how you explain it, it’s still a $15 million to $25 million decision that needs to be factored into the overall equation.Miles was informed shortly after the win over A&M that he would be returning, with Alleva, who has come under fire for his handling of the situation, making a statement a short time later confirming to the media that the coach would indeed be back for a 12th season.