Is closing LSU practices a panic move by Les Miles?

Noah.Dreams · 08-29-2009, 05:27 PM

August 27, 2009

Is closing LSU practices a panic move by Les Miles?

By Glenn Guilbeau
Gannett Louisiana News

BATON ROUGE - The last open football practice of the 2009 season was last Monday. I say open, but it's more like a peep hole. Since Nick Saban became LSU's coach in 2000, reporters have been allowed to watch about 10-15 minutes of the early portion of practice and then werre escorted out.
Since about all one can gather over that span are injuries and absentee players, and those make great news nuggets, that was about all that we got from the practices. LSU coach Les Miles does not like injury information to get out, which is why he so often lies about his players' injuries, which is fine. All coaches do it.

Few lie as transparently as Miles, but they all do it. But the reporters usually were able to find out what they needed anwyay.

This give and take went on in the 2005, '06, '07 and '08 seasons, and Miles did close practice all together in 2007 and 2008 after key losses. Information Miles didn't like getting out kept getting out, but it didn't really matter because he lost just two games in each of his first four seasons. In fact injury information never won or lost a football game in the history of the game. Football coaches are just paranoid, have seen too many war movies and they think injury knowledge matters.

Meanwhile, baseball coaches not only tell you who's hurt, but they tell you who's pitching today, tomorrow and the next day. Therefore, baseball coaches are real men.

But I digress.

This summer Miles decided he was going to close practices all together because too much injury information was getting out. The question is this. Why didn't he close practice in all season long in '06, '07 or '08? Because 2009 is his first season coming off an 8-5 season. So I guess we reporters lost all those games.

Sorry about that.

But does this mean I won all those games in 2007?

In truth, it does not matter to me that practices are hereby completely closed. It will give me more time to write, blog, tweet, email, chat and whatever else they think of next. This policy could actually lead to more accurate stories, because several writers who cover LSU were trying to glean far more than is possible from a 15-minute practice peek. For example, just because a regular starter is not with the first team does not always mean anything. He could be with the first team later after the media is gone, or the coaches may be working on depth.

They know what Richard Dickson can do. They don't have to keep seeing it. But many reporters didn't realize this and went with what they saw in their peek without checking with contacts who watch all of practice.

But Miles' move at this time worries me. Is he blaming the media for the poor coaching his team received last season? But the most worrisome thing is this. LSU coaches who have completely closed practices never won again. Those were Gerry DiNardo and Curley Hallman.

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