If it's one gripe that i really have with Miles for last year, it was the fact that he started Addai against 2A teams when he was hurt. He was never the same after that, of course that changed when he was given some time off (ala Peach Bowl). It made no sense considering the stable of running backs that everyone says we have. There are a lot of good coaches in the SEC, you WILL get outdone every so often. Saban did blow the Cap. One Bowl game and the Arkansas one, so even the great Saban can mess up. Gotta give Miles another year to evaluate him, however being the worst penalized team in the league isn't a good start. IMO, the jury is still out. I don't think we'll win another Nat. Champ with Miles. Can you honestly say that we can without Saban?
Well something sure did happen because after the first half it seemed like it was going to be a looong game. They were a totally different team in the 2nd half. I hope Landry or someone on the team can take over the leadership role now that Williams is gone.
But Miles is the one who created the unity council of team leaders and explained what he expected of them - including doing just what Kyle did that halftime... Miles didn't do it himself because no coach could do it as well as a player could, and so he expected his leaders to do it & they did.
Obviously, in retrospect - it sure would have been nice to let Addai sit out & get healthy so we could have him for the bigger games. However, at the time Addai felt fine every day at practice and there were no indications he wouldn't be able to play on it in the games. Also, we had no one else except Vincent & Carey - we badly needed Addai, and you know how coaches are, if you are the starter they expect you to play through some pain for your team. Of course the jury is still out. Neither Miles, nor Jimbo, nor Pellini has ever had a record of poorly penalized teams in the past - that tells me that last year was an aberration. We'll see soon enough. I fully expect to compete for NC's under Miles. I don't know if we'll win one, because it takes a lot of luck to win one, but we'll be very close and I'd like to think we will. After all, up until the SECCG, Miles had matched Saban's best year (03) in his first.
I think Miles tended to play the starters in general too long. We probably would have been fine with Carey, Vincent, and Hester. If they wouldn't have gotten the job done, we could always insert Addai. It is over now and we only lost a couple of games. It probably wouldn't have meant the difference in Ws and Ls.
I would agree, but our games were always closer than they should've been & can't blame Miles for wanting to make sure we got the W. And with starters, it's a psychological thing - you want your starter to know he's your starter. You don't sit him & bring him in later because it sends the wrong message.
Last year was an aberation on many fronts.. one being that all bets were off on conditioning because of Katrina and Rita...
