Saturday Not The First Time Miles Lost Track Of Time

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Yesterday, during his mea culpa, Les Miles admitted that he’d “mismanaged the back end of the Ole Miss game.”

“I let the clock get away from me; it was my fault, my mistake.”

But Saturday wasn’t the first time The Hat did something questionable at the close of a game.

Back in October of 2007 — on his way to a national title with two losses (to Arkansas and Kentucky) — Miles’ Tigers were trailing Auburn 24-23 in the closing seconds of their annual rivalry game.

LSU had the ball at the Auburn 23.  The clock was ticking down.  The safe bet would have been to kick a 38-yard (or closer) field goal and play for overtime at home.

Instead, Miles had Matt Flynn drop back to throw for the end zone.  Flynn snapped the ball with 8 seconds on the clock.  Tick, tick, tick.

The ball — amazingly — was caught for a touchdown with just three seconds to play.  The clock ticked down to :01 before stopping.

Miles was hailed as a riverboat gambler.  “That is the call of the year!” Mike Patrick screamed.

LSU won the game and went on to win the national title when voters made them the first two-loss team in history to get a shot at the title belt.

But if Flynn had been sacked on that play, or if the ball had been juggled and dropped in the end zone, most likely the Tigers would not have had time for a game-tying short field goal. 

And Flynn didn’t exactly race to the line to snap the ball in the first place.  What if he’d taken another second to snap it?  (Not to mention the possibility of the ball being intercepted.)

I thought it was bat guano crazy at the time, but it worked, so no one cared. 

In light of last week’s clock mismanagement, we now have to look at that call from two years ago and wonder if Miles knew the clock situation in that game, either.

From the way his team came to the line and the length of the play that was called, I don’t think he did.

See for yourself.