On Saturday, LSU coach Les Miles will do something he hasn’t done since 1986.
All 10 coaches of Miles’ staff will be on the sidelines on Sept. 3, which Miles said he hasn’t been a part of since between 1982-86 when he was the offensive line coach at the University of Colorado Boulder.
In the past, Miles and company have held offensive coordinator Cam Cameron in the press box, which changed when the three-year offensive play caller moved to the sidelines in LSU’s 56-27 Texas Bowl win on Dec. 29.
“Here is the issue: Where does Dave and Cam figure to serve us best?” Miles said. “To me, I think what Cam gave us dealing with the quarterbacks was extremely good, and I think Dave’s really got to be downstairs for the defense.”
Miles figures position coaches “serve LSU best” on the sidelines, dealing with substitutions, like Ed Orgeron subbing the defensive line and Bradley Dale Peveto swapping members of special teams, he said.
So, if everyone is downstairs, who will be in the booth, communicating to LSU’s position coaches and coordinators through the headset?
“We’ll have a young group of coaches,” Miles said. “Those guys that can coach and talk and be upstairs.”
All of which, Miles said, is subject to change if LSU deems the booth’s vantage point better, or more important, than the hands-on communication on the field between Cameron and Aranda to signal callers on offense and defense respectively.
“The coordinators and the secondary coach would be the ones that can come upstairs, and the reality is that our guys wanted to stay down, and it’s something that they can do,” Miles said.
“And I’m going to take it under advisement and say that they can see the field from there. And if I find that, in fact, we’re not getting the view of things that need to be relayed from the press box, this will change.”