Pretty much since the day Les Miles was fired at LSU last September, fans, media and even his family have been calling for him to get a job on TV. Miles is smart, funny and gregarious, and he’s well-known to all college football fans, which would seem to make him the ideal college football studio analyst. We speculated Miles would make a perfect replacement for Lee Corso on College GameDay, ESPN brought him aboard as a guest analyst, and his own daughter attempted to talk him into broadcasting.
But despite all that, it looks as Miles will be passing up a television career, at least for now. Via the Montgomery Adviser:
The latest
- Norman Chad on the World Series of Poker, his falling out with Tony Kornheiser, and why he doesn’t gamble on sports
- CBS broadcast of UEFA Champions League Final draws best-ever English language viewership in US
- Penn National is shuttering theScore Bet in the U.S., shifting its focus there to Barstool Sportsbook
- Charles Barkley insists “jackass” Golden State Warriors fans don’t influence his analysis
Miles said he went for a tryout to be an analyst for FOX Sports, but didn’t want to be conformed.
“It’s a struggle when you haven’t had a censor button on the sidelines,” Miles said. “You quickly find out I gave it the old college try, but it’s not going to happen.”
It’s not clear whether Miles said no to Fox or whether Fox said no to Miles, but the takeaway is that the coach will not be on air this coming season, and it sounds like he’s not particularly interested in TV beyond that, either. Unless HBO launches a college football talk show, Miles is going to be “censored” on any network he works for, and if that’s a deal-breaker then broadcasting is not going to work out for him.
Miles has maintained all along that he’d prefer coaching to broadcasting, and it seems that hasn’t changed, even as the coaching offers have been slow coming. As a national championship-winning coach, Miles will find a gig on the sidelines sooner or later, and then he won’t have to worry about his language at all. Even if that will disappoint his daughter—and all the other fans who think he would be excellent in a studio.
