’15 will make or break Les Miles

The LSU football team was monstrous in 2011, owning quite possibly the single-most dominant regular season in the modern history of college football.

In 2012, LSU took a step back, but was still pretty good – owning a 10-win regular season. In 2013, LSU won nine games during the season; the 10th win coming in the bowl game. This year, they won eight.

Do you see a pattern developing here?

I surely do, and it’s a pattern that needs to be curbed in 2015 or else the Tigers need to at least begin contemplating whether it’s time to get a new head coach.

Les Miles has had a great run at LSU. On paper, he has had probably the best career of any coach in school history, including Nick Saban.

He’s won a national championship. He’s won 56 of the 80 SEC games in which he’s coached – an incredibly successful clip that is unrivaled by most coaches in the history of the SEC. It’s a streak that’s even more impressive when one considers that he’s coached during the Golden Era of the conference – the most successful stretch in SEC history in terms of dominance throughout the entire conference. Oh yeah, Les has never lost an in-season out of conference game in Baton Rouge, either – something that seems impossible, but has been attained in his 10-season run with the Tigers.

But Miles has now been at LSU for a decade, and sometimes things become stale within a program that’s been in place for such a long time.

And the 2015 season will either be the turning point that solidifies that Miles will retire in Baton Rouge, or it’ll be the beginning of the end of his tenure.

It all starts with the offense – the side of the ball that plagues the team.

The Tigers have to find a quarterback in 2015. If they don’t, they have no shot, and Miles will fall on his sword.

It can’t be Anthony Jennings. No offense to the kid, but LSU just simply can’t trot him out on the field again as its starter if it wants to be taken seriously as a powerhouse program. Jennings is not SEC-material. After 14 starts, I’ve seen enough. Nothing can change my mind. He is Jordan Jefferson Version 2.0, and he will never be a competent player that can beat the litany of Top 15 programs that encompass an SEC schedule.

His flaws are endless. In the pocket, he can’t pass. On the edges, he’s not fast enough to be a runner. He doesn’t understand progressions, makes the wrong decision every time on the zone-read and looks at only one receiver when dropping back to pass. Jennings is simply not a good player, and it’s time for a divorce.

So with that said, who will be the guy under center that will save Miles’ job? In my opinion, it should be true freshman and 2015 sophomore Brandon Harris that gets the first shot, but if he didn’t play in 2014, logic concludes that he is either a) absolutely, positively horrible or b) in Les Miles’ doghouse for some unknown reason.

In my eyes, I see Harris as a raw quarterback with all of the tools to be the guy LSU needs. Against Mississippi State, he was flawless – albeit against prevent defense. Miles and his staff would counter that he got a shot against Auburn and failed, but did he really have a chance in that game? Harris is not an I-form quarterback. He is a spread quarterback. Put him in the shotgun every snap (like in the Mississippi State game) and then tell me that he’s a failure. You won’t be able to. He’ll be too busy scoring touchdowns.

If Harris isn’t the guy, LSU can always pan for gold on the transfer circuit and try and scoop up longshots like Ohio State’s Braxton Miller or Notre Dame’s Everett Golson – two players who are eligible to transfer without penalty if they choose to do so.

Both aren’t likely, and both would be mortars with just one year to save the program. But so was Cam Newton at Auburn, and that worked out pretty well, so it’s worth a shot.

Aside from quarterback, LSU is loaded throughout the rest of its depth chart. At tailback, Leonard Fournette is a legitimate threat to win the Heisman Trophy in 2015. On the edges and in the trenches, the Tigers are loaded, as well.

Defensively, LSU is talented as heck and will no longer have defensive coordinator John Chavis’ ridiculously soft/blitz-never scheme to go by.

I know stats say that Chavis is a great coordinator, but my eyes always told me he was not. Most defenses do indeed allow small amounts of yardage when their offense is run-based and is eating up gobs and gobs of clock to keep them off the field.

Under ‘Chief,’ LSU’s defense almost never blitzed, and always came up small in the biggest moments. How many times did teams get cheap points at the ends of halves or games against his prevent defense? I remember it happening two out of the past three times LSU played Alabama.

How many bowl games were the Tigers unprepared for defensively? I remember a Clemson game and a Notre Dame game vividly in my memory bank.

Why should we assume that the coordinator is a genius when he’s coaching a defense filled with dozens and dozens of NFL players? Let him walk to Texas A&M, and get someone else. The defense will still be effective without him – maybe even more effective.

At least it better be, or else it might be the end of the road for Miles in 2015.

Is this current low point a blip in the radar or a sign of things to come? That question will be answered when September 2015 rolls around.

How that cookie crumbles will decide how much longer Miles is roaming the sidelines and eating grass at LSU.

10-2 and he stays.

8-4? All bets are off.