Just when loyalists to the University of Colorado football program appeared to have settled down and accepted the fact that they needed to exercise patience with head coach Mike MacIntyre, who has won just 10 games in three years in Boulder, the folks down in Baton Rouge, La. decided to get crazy and begin to execute a buyout of Les Miles. Now, what started as a rumbling in Buffaloes country a week ago is gaining momentum and looks to be headed in the direction of a full-blown stampede.
On Tuesday, former Colorado quarterback Charles Johnson, who played under Miles when he was an assistant coach at CU, joined The Nosebleed Section on Mile High Sports AM 1340 to discuss the possibility of the Buffs going after the coach who led LSU to the 2007 national championship.
“With no disrespect to coach MacIntyre,” Johnson said, “There’s no denying what Les Miles is and has been on the college football landscape for the last two decades as a head coach. It speaks for itself.”
Indeed; since 2005, the Tigers have finished the season ranked in the top-5 of the AP Poll five times, and in the top-25 on three other occasions. This year could mark just the first time in Miles’ tenure that LSU finishes with less than eight wins. He has a game against Texas A&M to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“Whether it’s Mike MacIntyre or Les Miles, the mother’s milk of college football in recruiting,” notes Johnson. Something Miles has excelled at tracing back to his days at Colorado. Miles was notably credited with recruiting Sal Aunese, one of the nation’s top quarterbacks at the time, to Boulder.
Johnson believes Les Miles would instantly improve the recruiting in Boulder, an area that has lacked for some time. Colorado’s recruiting classes have been perennially ranked at or near the bottom of the Pac-12 since joining the conference in 2011. For Colorado to succeed, as they did under Bill McCartney in the late ’80s and early ’90s, recruiting will have to see a drastic improvement.
“You can make the case Les Miles can do just that,” says Johnson.
Dante DeMarco, co-host of The Nosebleed Section, isn’t so delicate in his assessment. He says the Buffs should “break the bank” and that hiring Miles would be a “defibrillator” for the CU football program.
Johnson admits, the rank and file sports fans aren’t talking CU football these days. “If [hiring Miles] fixes that, so be it.”
CU athletic director Rick George said on Nov. 11 via CUBuffs.com, “Mike MacIntyre is going to be our coach next year.” But that was before the news about Miles had begun to surface.
The one knock on Miles, Johnson adds, is that he hasn’t been able to recruit a top-line quarterback during his time at LSU. He also notes that it would be difficult to draw recruits from the south, where Miles has been primarily recruiting for two decades, into the Pac-12.
Still, there’s growing sentiment among Colorado followers that there should at least be a conversation with Miles about his interest in returning to Boulder, and potentially returning the Buffs to relevance on the national scene as he helped do in the late ’80s.
No disrespect to the Buffs’ current head coach, says DeMarco, but Miles can do all the things MacIntyre can’t.
Listen to the full interview with Johnson in the podcast below…
Catch The Nosebleed Section every weekday from 10p-midnight on Mile High Sports AM 1340 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of what’s new and what’s next in Colorado sports.
