The case for Les Miles as Maryland's next head football coach

Over the coming weeks and months, the Maryland football program will search for a new head coach to replace the departed Randy Edsall. We know who the candidates are, but who should Maryland pick? We'll state every coach's case, whether he wants the job or not, in 500 words or so.

Les Miles, LSU head coach

Possibility scale: 0.5/10

The resume

Miles, 62, has had a brilliant 11-year run at LSU, where he's become an obvious top-10 coach in college football and consistently placed the Tigers near the top of the most brutal conference of this era. He is a ridiculous 110-32 in Baton Rouge, having won one BCS Championship and lost in one more since replacing Nick Saban for the 2005 season. The Tigers are "just" 7-3 this season, including losses to Alabama and Ole Miss (which beat Alabama), but LSU boosters are clearly not the most understanding bunch in the world. Miles is very possibly getting fired, which is sort of nuts in the sense that he wins a bunch of games and is also due a $15 million buyout if LSU cans him. What a country.

The benefits

They are many. Miles recruits at an all-world level. He wins practically infinite football games. He knows how to coach under outrageous pressure and would be greeted at Maryland (or at almost any Big Ten school) as a messiah. The chances of Miles not winning at least nine games per season wherever he goes next are very, very slim. He's a blue-chip coach with a demonstrable penchant for finding blue-chip players and convincing them to play for him.

Miles is notable for his consistent excellence. The Tigers have spent time in the AP Poll's top 10 in every single one of his 11 seasons leading the program. Is LSU a better situation than Maryland? You bet. But Miles also won at Oklahoma State (28-21 in four years), and he's very much responsible for transitioning the Cowboys from the doormat they were under head coach Bob Simmons to the upper-tier contender they've generally been under Mike Gundy.

The drawbacks

He's on the wrong side of 60, but that's about it. Miles coaches a power-run offense and not the kind of "wide-open" system Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson has said he'd prefer. But Anderson would probably get over it.

In one sentence

Miles is going to collect a fat buyout from LSU and is pretty definitely not coming to Maryland, but he'd be a great hire for virtually any school in the country, so why not dream?