Riffing on the Rumors
Things are getting interesting in Michigan’s search for a new head football coach. The media’s attention has turned entirely to Les Miles. This isn’t a surprise as he’s been seen as the leading candidate for quite a while. But while looking at things from LSU’s perspective there are some intriguing recent developments.
ESPN is reporting that Louisiana State defensive coordinator Bo Pelini has accepted the head coaching job at Nebraska. This is in stark contrast to comments from LSU athletic director Skip Bertman about Michigan’s pursuit of head coach Les Miles. Bertman is apparently fine with Pelini finalizing negotiations for a new job while telling Michigan they couldn’t talk to Miles until after today’s SEC championship game.
What are Bertman’s motives as far as his handling of both of his coaches? Here’s some guesswork on my part.
Bertman could be bluffing and talks between Michigan AD Bill Martin and Miles could have already started. If that’s the case then why take a public posture to say that he’d given Michigan permission but only after today’s game is completed? There are only two reasons I can come up with.
On the one hand he might want to rally the big LSU donors to get them to put their money where their collective mouths are in order to throw Nick Saban-like money at Miles. Tough to do that if you don’t make it widely known that the bidding starts at sundown tonight. If you look at this from LSU’s view, they lost Nick Saban who ended up coming back to college ball fairly quickly. If they like Les as much as they liked Saban why not throw one of the largest compensation packages available at him? It’s the only way to compete with the coach’s loyalties to the Maize and Blue.
On the other hand if Bertman knows for a fact that Miles is gone he probably wants to get in front of public opinion by showing he made sure Miles kept his eyes on the prize that is the SEC Championship. Spilling the beans also helps him get the word out that the LSU job might be open as soon as next week so that could help to facilitate contact from interested parties. There were rumors that Tommy Tubberville was prepared to take over head coaching duties at Arkansas. If the LSU gig is available does Tubberville consider that opportunity? Tubberville is a coach who knows a thing or two about hiring great assistants: Bobby Petrino and Gene Chizik both coached for him at Auburn.
So what to make of Bertman’s actions regarding Bo Pelini? Pelini’s defense really hasn’t been that good this season outside of stopping cold a pretty one-dimensional offense in Virginia Tech. But he’s had some solid defenses over the past couple years so he could conceivably be a candidate to replace Miles if Bertman felt he was likely to leave. Wouldn’t he at least get an interview? Given that Bertman possibly green-lighted talks between Tom Osborne and Bo Peilni, he’s either confident he’ll be able to keep Miles or he likely never saw Pelini being promoted to the head coaching position if Miles left. So he wasn’t going to stand in the way of him moving up the coaching chain.
In the event Miles leaves, at least Pelini’s second game as a head coach won’t also be as a temporary coach in a bowl game, which happened back in 2003.
Bill Martin hasn’t said much about the coaching search, so much of what is being suggested is likely coming from other people in the athletic department. Martin has made a few comments but I’m not sure you can read too much into them. For instance he initially said the next coach would have to have previous head coaching experience but then in this article said he’d be willing to consider a coordinator with no head coaching experience.
So with that in mind it’s tough to get a read on whether Michigan would get into an auction with LSU for Les Miles. Martin has said he would consider paying the next coach $2-$3 million per year. Now I’m not sure how much that comment really reflects his thinking, but if it is an accurate statement there’s no question LSU will outbid Michigan by a significant amount of money. This is a program that had performance bonuses put into the past two coaches contracts that made Nick Saban the highest paid college coach after he won the BCS title and would make Miles one of the top 3 highest-paid coaches if he wins the BCS title.
Then on top of that Michigan needs to pay a $1.25 million buyout, pay the salaries for the current assistant coaches for this season and then hire a few new assistants. Put it all together and you are talking about over $7 million spent on football coaching salaries and buyouts for 2008. Is that going to cause sticker shock for an athletic director who said he’d consider paying his football coach $2-$3 million? Will the Wolverines expect Miles to accept less money at Michigan and then pay his buyout much like John Beilein did to become Michigan’s basketball coach?
Skip Bertman’s actions make it obvious he’s serious about keeping Miles in Baton Rouge and that he’s going to test the coach’s loyalties by outbidding Michigan for his services. So that is going to be the thing to watch this upcoming week.
UPDATE: MLIVE has an article that indicates that Kirk Herbstreit is reporting that Les Miles will be named head coach next week and that Jon Tenuta would be the defensive coordinator at Michigan. If that’s the case then I’m impressed that Bill Martin was able to not only get a head coach but a very good defensive coordinator on board so quickly.
UPDATE Part Deux! Now Jim Carty from MLIVE is reporting that Miles will stay at LSU. A statment is expected shortly. If this is true this was very nicely played by Skip Bertman, who was a pretty damn fine baseball coach at LSU.
Random idea What if Herbie got it wrong and Miles is signing Tenuta to be his DC at Louisiana State? Makes sense with word leaking that Pelini is off to Nebraska.
Bill Martin bo pelini les miles Michigan Football skip bertmanNo Comments
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