By Rick Grantham
The Fighting Tigers is the football team of Louisiana State University. The team takes pride in it recent achievements including a National title in 2007. They have thirteen conference titles, seven division titles, and one Heisman trophy recipient.
Coach Leslie Edwin Miles heads the team today. He agreed to coach the LSU Tigers from 2005 until 2012. Coach Miles has a long coaching career, which he started in 1980 as an assistant coach for the University of Michigan. After the University of Michigan, he became an assistant coach of the University of Colorado from 1982 to 1986. From 1987 up until 1994, he went back to coach the University of Michigan. He helped the team achieve eight successive winning seasons.
He left Michigan to coach the Dallas Cowboys from 1998 to year 2000. He got his first head-coaching job in 2001 where he coached the Oklahoma State University. When he came to Oklahoma, the university football team was in bad shape. They had losing seasons in the previous years. Miles did not make any drastic improvement during his first season as head coach; however, he led the team in winning seasons from 2002 to 2004.
He had memorable games with the Oklahoma State University. Their face off with the Oklahoma Sooners was among the highlights of his coaching career there. He led his team to a victory against the much-favored Sooners during the end of his first season in the Oklahoma State. The next upset took place in the ensuing season. They again faced the Sooners by the end of the regular season, and again, they came out victorious. During the same year, the Associated Press named him the Coach of the Year for the Big 12 Conference.
His career as head coach of the LSU Tigers started in 2005. He replaced Coach Nick Saban who led the Tigers in a Sugar Bowl Title in 2003 and two Southeastern Conference titles in 2001 and 2003. His first season with the team was strong. Although they had heartbreaking losses to weaker teams, they manage to finish an 11-2 record.
The 2006 season was also a blast. Although they did not bag the division title, they received an invitation to play the Sugar Bowl and faced one of the strongest teams, the Fighting Irish. Here they defeated the Irish. By the end of the year, they ranked third. This was according to the ESPN polls and the Associated Press.
The 2007 season was tough for both the Tigers and Coach Miles. Several distractions were coming from the media. There were wrong reports about him leaving the Tigers. They also had another devastating loss at home to a weaker team, Arkansas. Although this was the case, the team came out victorious. They won the conference title and earned its third National championship title.
Speculations of Miles accepting the head-coaching job in Michigan refused to die until such time that Coach Rich Rodriguez accepted the offer. Settling that, he led the Tigers to a smashing 2007 season, winning the BCS National Championship game against the number one team, Ohio State Buckeyes.
Rick Grantham is an expert on sports equipment, specially on LSU Tigers Merchandise for more information on College Fan Gear, visit BooYah Village.
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