Les Miles: risk and reward

Perhaps there is no way to separate professional sport from cliche...

Football especially is captivating because it plays like a good documentary, and thus, when it goes unhindered by artificial narratives and generic motifs, the drama inherent in competition naturally shows through. That's what I'd like to believe I guess. That's why my girlfriend is now perhaps more concerned with the outcome of USC football games than I am... because once you watch that one incredible game (2006 Rose Bowl v. Texas) you can never stop watching.

And yet, like a documentary, an artificial narrative is essentially married to the real life itself... football as we know it could not exist without all the hoopla, all the John madden cliches, and the in-game graphics and stats (while we're on the topic, does anybody think that the video profiles of players where they just stand there and smile, or spin a ball in their hand are totally inane... just use a STILL PICTURE... honestly, just because I CAN put peanut butter on my balls and have my dog lick it off doesn't mean I SHOULD... but I digress). So I cannot say that I'd like to remove all cliche from the sporting world. To do so would be impossible... but I'd like to avoid over-simplification if ever possible and I think this is where pro sports media is going. I mean just look at the intricacy of the analysis on ESPN.com or page 2 stuff from Bill Simmons. Still, many fail to recognize inevitable change toward the 'less stupid.'

I heard a sports talk radio host once say that he thought Madden and Summerall were the best sportcasting duo ever... I almost laughed out loud. If I wanted my senile drunk grandpa to blabber on about sweat-stains and how good Brett Favre is and draw telecaster circles on stock shots of tailgating food well... ok basically I don't want that. My personal favorite tandem right now is Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. Maybe it's partly because they've been doing NFC east games on Fox for a while now and I get all misty and nostalgic when a good NFC east rivalry comes around, but I think there's something more to it. When all's said and done those two guys treat us like we are intelligent discerning human beings and analyze the game as such. If there's one thing I can't STAND it's when the commentators don't understand what's going on with, say, a penalty and or a playcall, and while I'm screaming at the TV because it's fairly obvious what is really going on, they take 15 seconds to figure it out. John Madden is notorious for bullshit like this... because he's not very smart. Now maybe I've just watched a lot of sports. But a lot of these guys make me feel like I'd make a better sportscaster than they would. And that's a little sad.

Worst of all the commentator fouls, though, is the constant repetition of the narrative cliche. Let's call this, for the sake of conciseness, the "Enberg Fallacy" (because we all know Dick Enberg, classic sports commentator whore, is the most cliched and generic of them all... that man would commentate me taking a dump if CBS asked him to... "oh my!"). Anyway, the basic gist of the "Enberg fallacy" is that sportscasters often use the simplest, most narratively immediate explanation to describe trends... some examples: Tom Brady and the Patriots just know how to win; Reality: The Patriots have meticulous coaches and don't underestimate the value of having great offensive lineman. Tim Duncan just works harder than everybody else (after all, Duncan is basically a white guy so that must mean that all his natural ability was earned through sweat and tears right...?); Reality: He's 7 ft for Godsakes! And he's smart enough to have developed moves that make fouling him unavoidable. Other than that he just happens to play on one of the Only teams in the league that actually plays defense.

Ok so you get how this works right...? Which brings us FINALLY to the topic of this post. Which is the LSU/Florida game this Saturday. Unfortunately I was flipping all over the place because there was so much good shit to watch that night so I really only saw the final 3rd of the game at full attention. However I did catch most of Les Miles' gutsy calls and I also was lucky enough to here Jolly old Verne Lundquist proclaim "Nick Saban who?!" (which, when you actually think about it, doesn't make any sense as a phrase). And as the clock expired on the LSU victory I knew that the pants-creaming over Les Miles and his "guts" (including going for it and making it 5 times on 4th down, including a fake field goal) were just beginning. Yes Les Miles made some good calls, but the fact is he also made some really bad calls... and got lucky.

1) the challenge: This is actually when I tuned for real to the game and at first glance as they were showing the replay I thought Florida had returned the kick for a touchdown considering the fact that Miles' was using his one coaches challenge (and risking his crucial final timeout in a close game in which he trailed) to challenge a call that had already been initially reviewed upstairs and had not (those officials deemed) required a further look. But it wasn't over a touchdown... it was over 9 lousy yards... are you kidding me?! That's not a gutsy call on his part, that's not "rolling the dice," Verne. That's stupidity. To make matters worse, it seemed clear to me from the grainy blown-up CBS freeze frames that there wasn't conclusive evidence at all that would overturn the call on the field that he had stayed in bounds. I def. thought he hadn't touched the white... and I almost got the impression that the officials overturned it because they didn't want to punish LSU so heavily for such an inconsequential call. Ironically Miles won the challenge. And the stupidity continued...

2) Listen, I'm all for going for it on 4th down... Miles has some great fake field goals in the LSU playbook and he's used them perfectly, moreover by extending those drives he kept momentum throughout the game. I don't even mind the 4th and goal at the 3 where flynn's pass cut the defecit to 3 pts. Because even if they don't get it LSU's defense was starting to shut the gators down and they'd have to start at their own 3. Moreover, Colt David (the LSU kicker) is pretty garbage, except for maybe his running ability during fakes. Still it probably wasn't the right call score-wise but it worked so it looks good. The final 4th down conversion however... was just stupid. He was down 3 at home, with one timeout left (somehow) and easily in field goal range and he goes for it on 4th and 1 at the 7. If they don't get it, the game's over. If they do get it, they might score a touchdown and win (what happened), but if they kick a field goal they tie the game and probably win in overtime the way things are going... Is Colt David that terrible? It's really a no-brainer. No matter how "gutsy" you consider yourself to be you still kick the field goal. It's a simple matter of risk and reward. If Hester hadn't inched over that ethereal yellow line with a gritty 2nd effort Miles would be the in the sports media doghouse instead of their darling.... But they did make it, BARELY so everyone will praise Les Miles and his bad call for the rest of the season... or until they lose to a mediocre SEC team in a couple weeks. "Nick Saban Who?" indeed.

In the meantime we can all watch as countless replays show Les' wry smile and weird tongue-thing as he watches his risky calls inexplicably continue to pay off. But let's stop ourselves before we say Les Miles is the reason LSU is winning games. . . That would be another one of those unavoidable "Enberg Fallacies." It makes for a neat storyline but it's not really true. Jacob Hester is the reason LSU won on saturday (by a matter of inches), and he saved Miles' ass in the process.