LSU’s Miles wins AP coach of the year

LSU's Miles has been voted The Associated Press Coach of the Year. Thirty of 56 votes cast went to Miles. Bill Snyder of Kansas State was second with 16, Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State had six, Brady Hoke of Michigan got three and Lane Kiffin of Southern California had one. As Miles reflected on the various trials he dealt with this season in an interview with the AP this week, he spoke in a hushed tone and recounted a talk he had long ago with his father in the kitchen of his childhood home in Elyria, Ohio. When Miles was around 12 years old, he was worried about his dad, Hope “Bubba” Miles, who’d been passed over for a promotion and subsequently laid off, all while dealing with the death of his own father.

“We’ll be fine,” the LSU coach recalled his father telling him. “It’s the reaction to the difficult times; it’s always those days when something does not come your way and you have to make the best move, that’s what’s going to make your life rich.”

However LSU’s season ends in the BCS title game against No. 2 Alabama on Jan. 9 in the Superdome, it will go down as one of the more memorable chapters in the history of Louisiana’s most storied college football program. The events that could have derailed the 2011 campaign were numerous and diverse, yet the Tigers dominated just about every team they faced.