Even LSU football coach Les Miles isn’t above sharing an air mattress with his family in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav.Unfortunately for Miles, the end result was the cold floor of the LSU Football Operations Center.”It deflated the entire time,” he said Wednesday. “By the end of the night, I was laying flat on the floor. I didn’t sleep very much at all. The next night I said, ‘I’m done with that air mattress.’ I slept in my office.”Like much of Baton Rouge, Miles does not have electricity at his home. A tree fell “inches short” of his house — instead plunging into the pool.”It’s getting plenty of water because it’s in the pool,” Miles said with a smirk.He’s toured the destruction Gustav caused in Baton Rouge and knows his players are troubled with personal concerns: power, food and well-being. “This storm was different from [hurricanes] Katrina and Rita, and it seemed to have a stronger effect,” he said. “The ‘hunker down’ was maybe a bit more sincere.”The Tigers practiced Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday despite the news that last weekend’s game against Troy was postponed until Nov. 15. LSU instead began preparations for the next scheduled home game against North Texas.”We told the team [Wednesday], ‘It’s hard to be strong when you’re disadvantaged, but that’s what they expect us to do, so let’s do it,'” he said. “It’s interesting because I could not dictate in my words what they should want to do. I asked the Unity Council, the leadership of our team, to stand and tell us what was on their hearts.”And senior defensive end Tyson Jackson did just that.”[He] said, ‘Listen, I’m not worth a dang at being a carpenter. I can’t drive nails through pieces of wood. The thing that I do best is play football, so let’s do that,'” Miles said. “We took his lead.”Miles said he has learned a lot from his first year at LSU when he served as a coach, mentor, counselor and father in Hurricane Katrina’s  aftermath. The Tigers postponed their 2005 North Texas game to a later date in the season. LSU played 11 consecutive games and finally collapsed in a 34-13 beating from Georgia in the Southeastern Conference Championship.With this season’s postponement, the Tigers face an eight-game streak if they make it to the SEC Championship.”I realize now … how fatigued our team gets,” Miles said. “If I can, somewhere in that schedule, I will take some time to get our legs back. We’re not necessarily going to go through the exact game week that we’ve always gone through.”Miles said he understood the reasoning for the Troy postponement and supported the University’s decision.”I think it’s a decision made for the benefit of all,” he said. “We need a game. We’d love to play. But we understand.”Miles and his family left their temporary home in the Football Operations Center this weekend to travel to Houston for a recruiting trip. The Tigers will resume practice Monday.Excluding the air mattress fiasco, Miles said the Gustav bonding experience has been one to remember.”All of our staff’s kids have just become great friends,” he said. “There’s no sleep curfew, and there’s a sleepover at all times,” he said. —-Contact Amy Brittain at [email protected]