Occupy College Football: Les Miles, Clay Helton And The Power Of Public Opinion

Les Miles is still the head football coach at LSU, something that supposedly was agreed upon before the Tigers defeated Texas A&M Saturday night but only made official after his team carried him around the field and Death Valley echoed with chants of his name.

This is important for how it affects the coaching carousel and who fills which vacant jobs where. But it's far more significant for the way the decision came about—namely, the actors with the most money and power exercised the least influence over a massive coaching decision.

Miles spent last week twisting in the wind despite boasting the highest winning percentage ever for an LSU coach and the Tigers ranking second in the polls a month earlier. To replace someone so accomplished, athletic director Joe Alleva needed to pay Miles a reported $15 million buyout, only to then fork over a similar salary—Miles takes home $4.3 million—to someone else. No one knew who that someone would be, per se; most guesses pointed to Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher, last seen in Baton Rouge coordinating Miles' offense, not that there's a real reason for him to leave Florida State anyhow. Just, someone.

That kind of stupidity is too glaring to blot out, and so it followed that students, fans, recruits, media—anyone with more than a passing interest in the sport, really—would see through any smokescreens Alleva and co. had conjured up. The public was furious, incredulous and dumbfounded—the usual rainbow of emotions onwhenever something inexplicable and ultimately pointless is about to go down in sports. The problem with public outrage, though, is that it only travels as far as the intended target's threshold for abuse. It requires someone to care, and athletic directors generally don't, at least not preventatively. They will eagerly sweep up rubble after the fact and solicit their sports information directors to cluck out statements of confidence; sometimes they're genuinely remorseful, too. But rarely, if ever, do they divert course before crashing through common sense.

On Saturday, LSU's did. According to LSU president F. King Alexander, the decision makers officially decided to retain Miles at halftime of the A&M game. They were certainly not swayed by aesthetics; at that point, the Tigers were clinging to a drab 6-0 lead.

Rather, the logic was this:

LSU decision makers felt media had swayed public and if Les Miles was fired school would have apoeared mean-spirited, per source
— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) November 29, 2015

There are two important takeaways here. First, LSU's brain trust deigned to listen to its constituency. But why they listened was more significant. There was no last-minute enlightenment; if anything, the situation reads as a grumpy acknowledgement of their plan being temporarily sabotaged. It would surprise no one if Miles began next season right back in flux and this week's victory became tomorrow's subtext.

Yet that would only make this more meaningful, not less. The real triumph is that LSU heard, and acted upon, the wider public's input precisely when it was least convenient to their interests. They didn't regard the consumers of their eight-figure enterprise as a means to an end, an easily ignored weathervane to be monitored only for information's sake. Instead, Alleva and his advisors treated that outrage as having intrinsic value, and subsequently feared it. A small group of elites being foiled by a wider populace with a fraction of their power and influence—it's college football's Occupy Wall Street moment, only something actually got accomplished.

***

It's worth wondering whether the "mean-spirited" part of the equation traces back to USC, another school that surprisingly retained its coach this week. After all, no other athletic director can step to Pat Haden, when it comes to firing coaches. The man canned one coach on an airport tarmac (Lane Kiffin) and another secondhand while he were en route to rehab (Steve Sarkisian).

Haden will never cop to it, but appointing interim coach Clay Helton as Sarkisian's permanent successor reeks of image-cleansing and kowtowing to a university that sentimentalizes its history to a fault. His denials in the introductory press release—"Clay was not hired because his team defeated UCLA Saturday. He was not hired because many current and former players voiced their support for him. And he was not hired because he was a Trojan."—should be taken with such a heavy wink that the text ought to fold into itself as it's read. Those are exactly the reasons why Helton was hired.

And, for a wide swath of the rooting public, those reasons are enough. It only helps that Helton's charisma and sturdiness have molded him into a father figure for so many players. It's all reminiscent of Ed Orgeron, the Red Bull-guzzling, revered former assistant and interim head coach for whom his players would march through tundra. Troy nearly revolted when he was passed over for the full-time gig in 2013, so it's no coincidence that with Haden's approval rating well below sea level, he executed the closest thing he reasonably could to a mulligan and hired a man who matched Oregron's interim tenure nearly step for step. It hasn't been nearly as acclaimed as LSU's redirection, nor should it be; USC was the best job on the market and Helton is less qualified than just about anyone else they could have hired. But at least for now, it's successfully mollified a huge chunk of USC's fan base and media, which appears to have been the primary objective.

It's indicative of college football at this moment that public approval victories seem to mean about as much as on-field victories. These are probably anomalies more than any burgeoning trend; it's entirely possible this fad may not last the week, given how serious South Carolina appears about entrusting its future to Will Muschamp. So be it.

College football is the same tone-deaf behemoth it has been and always will be, and there's little reason to expect that to change. Yet, it's nice to know that, occasionally, the beast can pause for a moment to acknowledge that individual voices sometimes do matter.