Welcome to the era of college football in which a coach that has won 77 percent of his games at an institution has to wait until the final play of an eight-win season (essentially nine, since a likely win was cancelled) to find out his fate.
Les Miles was carried off the field Saturday, after his LSU Tigers defeated Texas A&M, 19-7, not knowing if he would ever return to the sidelines.
Moments after the final play, Miles finally learned about his job status as he prepared for the postgame press conference with assembled members of the media.
It took ending a three-game losing streak for LSU athletic director Joe Alleva to have the confidence to say that Miles was his guy moving forward.
More than likely, it took a public outcry across the state… and Jimbo Fisher saying no to the Bayou.
In a college football world where “what can you do for me now?” means more than tradition and consistency, it shouldn’t be surprising that a coach such as Les Miles lives on the border between coaching legend and “searching for a new position.”
According to recruiting experts, the often brash head man has recruited the best class in the country for the 2016 season. He’s won 10 or more games in 7 of the 11 seasons he’s spent in Baton Rouge. Just four years ago, his Tigers were in a national championship game. In his 15 years as a head coach, the only time a Miles-led team hasn’t qualified for a bowl game was his first year at Oklahoma State in 2001.
After Saturday night’s fiasco at Louisiana State came to a close, all of those accomplishments were erased. As much as we continue to hide from it, the LSU administration proved to us yet again that college football is an industry.
Far gone are the days of Bo, Woody, Bear, and Beamer.
No longer do the best interests of players take precedence.
Now more than ever, with a playoff system in place, the game has welcomed and heartily embraced a business atmosphere. This isn’t a reluctant coexistence; it’s a full-on pursuit of success at all costs.
Rebuilding will not be tolerated. Beating your hated rival will never be enough. In a business-like atmosphere, the goals have to be higher than that. You must be the top business in the industry. If you’re not, there better be a nearly unbreakable plan to get your team to the top of the heap… quickly.
Just ask the temporary heads at the University of Illinois.
Interim athletic director Paul Kowalczyk made the decision on Saturday to hire interim head coach Bill Cubit to a two-year deal after the Illini lost to Northwestern. Kowalczyk said the meeting with Cubit was “on the fly.” He added that the decision wasn’t ideal for the program, but he doesn’t feel like it will be a dagger in the heart of it.
The reason for hiring Cubit? Yes, he might be a stop-gap until Illinois has its full administration in place two years from now. According to Jeremy Werner at Illini Inquirer, it’s all about building up a business model for years down the road.
“I think Bill is eminently qualified,” Kowalczyk said. “Obviously, he’s been a head coach. He knows what has to be done to run an organization like this and a program like this. Some folks aren’t ready for that move. But Bill knows you have to be a CEO, you can’t just be coach. There’s a lot of moving parts to being a head football coach, and he handles those very well.”
Handling moving parts on a two-year deal seems like a ticking time bomb, for a coach that weathered enough to storms to earn a legitimate chance as the Illinois head coach.
Yet, this is the era we live in.
College football is a business, and the ultimate payoff is getting to the only two bowl games that matter in January.
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Joe Dexter is the publisher of The Buckeye Battle Cry, an Ohio State sports site. Follow Joe and The BBC on Twitter.
