Les Miles' Sentences: An Easter Egg Hunt for the Willing

Football coaches are not first and foremost public speakers, which is why some of them are out of their element at an event like SEC Media Days. For all his quotable moments -- "Have a great day!" -- Miles also has a tendency to look and sound like he's just throwing out whatever words come into his mind.

Some samples:

Like last night, I was in Houston, go to Lake Charles, a number of places, how wonderful it is to see the great families of LSU and the supporters.

When I allowed our administration to envision this game, the decision being made to take it was only based on the fact that my team would accept the competition.

We're very fortunate at LSU, we have an opportunity to offer quite an opportunity. It's one where you get a great education, academic support. In fact, the lifestyle and the living in Baton Rouge is a tremendous place to be from.

Not that LSU didn't have some real issues last year. But asking Les Miles about them sometimes leads into a maze of words that you have to follow around for a while. You probably know what Miles is saying -- it's just the way he phrases it that's unique.

For example, the clock management that caused so many problems in, oh, last year's Ole Miss game -- just to spike throw one out there.

That did not go beyond my scrutiny. ... I can promise you that those situtations, some of those situations I'd never run into in coaching. Some of those situations I was, even though prepared for, had not envisioned the time constraints.

After those verbal wanderings, we found out that LSU is working on clock-management situations in practice, an idea that would be novel if not for the fact that you would think it routine.

"You know, I follow Jordan Jefferson," Miles said in response to another question. Really, this should be a comfort to LSU fans, since not following the starting quarterback would almost certainly lead to disaster. But -- there's some substance coming.

I think, again, young guys, they develop in different rates. I think he's had a better summer than he had a spring. I think that he's better this spring and this summer than he was at any time last fall.

So it's not always easy to diagram the sentences Les Miles uses to express his thoughts. But if you can follow along, there's information to be had.