For the 3rd year in a row, a head coach in Texas A&M-LSU is supposed to be out right after the game

The Texas A&M Aggies are taking on the LSU Tigers on Saturday night in Baton Rogue, and for the third season in a row, there are major concerns surrounding the future of one of the teams’ head coaches.

On Tuesday before the game, Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas A&M is expected to fire head football coach Kevin Sumlin after its game against LSU, adding that a win wouldn’t save his job.

Ed Orgeron was the Tigers’ interim head coach. Coach O wanted the job badly, but losses to rivals Florida and Alabama had hurt his chances.

During the A&M game on Thanksgiving night, it was reported that LSU was zeroing in on hot name Tom Herman for the full-time job. The news dominated social media and even the broadcast of the game LSU was playing in (see the bottom of the screen here):

LSU beat the Aggies, which brought Orgeron’s interim record to 5-2 on the season. Orgeron met with LSU AD Joe Alleva on Friday morning after the game, and by Saturday morning, Orgeron got the job officially.

”I planned on sleepin’ ‘til about 7, then get up and go work out. But then my phone rings at 5:30. I missed it. It’s Joe Alleva! I call back, ‘JOE, WHAT’S UP?’ He asked how my morning was, and I say ‘GREAT, I’M HEARIN’ YOUR VOICE!’ He said, ‘Can you meet with me at 8:30?’ I said ‘HELL YEAH, I’M COMING, BABY.’ My wife looks up and says, ‘I told you so.’

LSU was all but set to part ways with Miles after the team got shellacked by Ole Miss 38-17, which marked the program’s first three-game losing streak since 1999.

LSU beat writer Scott Rabalais wrote last week that Miles had lost the support of the boosters and that there was a “serious threat” to his job. Hours before the game on Saturday, a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors said that Miles would be on the hot seat even if he were to beat Ole Miss and A&M to finish 9-2.

And that was all before Miles’s team got embarrassed in Oxford.

“It’s not just the number of losses, but the quality of the losses,” is what the board member said. LSU has been outscored by a combined 52 points over the last three weeks, and the loss to Ole Miss was only as close as it was because of a blown coverage and a fluke fumble recovery in the end zone.

Even before the game, Miles implied to LSU boosters the game against A&M would be his last:

‘He said we’re a second family to him and he’s going to miss us, he appreciates his real friends, and then he told us good bye,’ the source said. ‘It was very emotional but in control.’

But Miles told the SEC Network he “had no suggestion that this was going to be my last game in Tiger Stadium,” and LSU says he made no indication of resigning.

At halftime against Texas A&M, the Tigers were down 7-6, albeit with a Death Valley crowd showing tons of support for the head coach. According to Stephanie Riegel of Business Report, shortly after that is when the decision was made to keep Miles:

Alexander confirms reports that the final decision on Miles’ future did not come until after a halftime meeting during the Nov. 29 game against Texas A&M, though he says the decision had “pretty much been made” a few days earlier. Among those in the halftime meeting were Alexander, Athletic Director Joe Alleva, and several members of the LSU Board of Supervisors.

“It was a combination of factors and a decision that we made collectively,” Alexander says. “We weighed all the factors in all this and it was a joint decision between many of our board members, our AD and many of us decided this was the wrong time and wrong place (to replace Miles.)”

LSU ended up beating the Aggies 19-7, and Miles was carried off the field by his team in celebration:

One coach is gonna enter the game on his way out, but maybe he’ll have a chance to salvage it at the last second.