Here's an interesting quote from LSU AD Joe Alleva about extending Les Miles' contract after seeing Arkansas flirting with bringing him north from the Bayou.
You can talk all you want about winning championships. It's really not always about winning championships. It's about being in the hunt to win championships, and (Miles) has shown that he's consistently in the hunt to win championships.
Auburn is a case in point of what Alleva wouldn't be shooting for; those other Tigers caught lightning in a bottle with Cam Newton and won a title in 2010 but quickly reverted to a lesser level and got hosed by Alabama 49-0 to close the Chizic era.
I'm also reminded of the Miami Marlins, who have won the World Series twice but have never made the playoffs outside of those two championship years. Is it better to be very good every so often and mediocre outside of it, or to be consistently good and in the hunt? While we're talking Tigers, the Motown version might fit Alleva's MO, making two trips to the World Series in six years and in good shape to make another run next year.
Seeing Les Miles take the money and run Hog wild north wouldn't have been right; had Miles been a traveling man, he'd have likely snapped up the Michigan job when it had been offered. He's got a good job in Baton Rouge with one of college football's marquee programs; overtures like Arkansas' just let him hit up his bosses for a raise, which he'll get as long as he keeps the Tigers in the hunt as Alleva likes.
Yes, the money in college football is a bit much, but we're watching, so the schools make money and pass it along to the folks they're allowed to pass it on to. You pay the folks that make the big paydays possible in a market economy, so seeing a coach make more than a whole department full of professors is how things roll.
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