The Saban-Miles dynamic, Texas Tech leftovers and Heisman talk

LSU coach Les Miles lives in the broad shadow cast by Nick Saban. Doug Benc/Getty Images Stewart Mandel's Mailbag Submit a question or an opinion to Stewart. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Stewart Mandel on Twitter

Around this time a year ago, with LSU about to face former coach Nick Saban's Alabama team for the first time, I put on a psychologist's cap to answer a question from a reader who wondered why Tigers fans held such disdain toward a man who had done so much good for their program.

My (condensed) answer: Hatred, at its core, is rooted in fear. LSU fans hate Saban for taking the Alabama job because deep down, they fear the potential implications for their program. ... LSU faithful would never have become angry at Saban to begin with if there wasn't a legitimate reason to fear him.

This, of course, elicited mockery from our friends on the Bayou, whose team would eventually win a national championship. Alabama, meanwhile, was weeks away from losing to Louisiana-Monroe.

But here we are a year later, on the eve of Saban's long-awaited return to Baton Rouge, and the circumstances have changed dramatically. 'Bama is now the team on top of the college football world, while the Tigers are still reeling from lopsided losses to Florida and Georgia.

Take a guess what kind of e-mails I'm receiving.

Many in Baton Rouge fear that this is the season that exposes Les Miles as a bad choice to replace Nick Saban. Following another ugly win against a usual patsy [Tulane], is this the beginning of the end of the Les Miles era?
-- Pearce C., Baton Rouge, La.

In all my years, I've never seen such an unquestionably successful coach as Miles (who is 40-8 in four seasons at LSU) continually garner such low confidence from not only his own constituency but fans and media across the country. From nearly the time he was hired, Miles has had to coach against the ghost of his predecessor. "Let's see how he does without Saban's recruits," has been a commonly heard refrain that apparently even a national championship hasn't quelled.

Obviously, nobody likes to see their team give up 50-plus points twice in a three-week span. But in light of Ryan Perrilloux's preseason dismissal and the departure of defensive stars like Glenn Dorsey and Craig Steltz, LSU's 6-2 record right now is almost exactly what I guessed it to be back in the preseason. It seems obvious to me that people wouldn't be pushing the panic button so quickly if not for the coinciding success that Saban is already having at Alabama.

Personally, I think Miles is a solid, albeit eccentric, coach. Generally speaking, his teams are well-prepared, he wins big games (including three straight lopsided bowl victories) and his players seem to take on his intensity. While the extent of the Tigers' defensive struggles this season has been puzzling, it's not exactly a shocker that their young quarterback -- who was never supposed to play this season -- is taking his lumps.

That said, if I had to start a program from scratch tomorrow, my top three choices for head coach would be Pete Carroll, Urban Meyer and Saban. Love of him or hate him, Saban is an all-world recruiter whose dry attention to detail and preparation is evident in his team's mistake-free play. He rescued LSU from oblivion and turned it into a national power, and now he's lifted 'Bama from mediocrity to No. 1 in the span of a year. The guy knows what he's doing.

LSU has a perfectly good coach in Miles, but if Tigers fans forever hold him to the Saban standard, they're never going to be satisfied. For Miles' sake, it's become almost imperative that he win Saturday's game. Despite what the rankings and records might say, LSU has the more talented roster and the more experienced lineup (with the glaring exception of quarterback). They'll also have an incredibly hostile crowd on their side.

With Auburn imploding before our eyes, it looks like the SEC West in the years to come is going to center around the LSU-Alabama rivalry. If Miles can pull off the upset this year, it should go a long way toward renewing confidence in his ability to keep pace going forward.

If not, you're going to see a whole lot of Tigers' fans' worst nightmares start materializing before their eyes -- and a whole lot of that anger get redirected from their former coach to the current one.