Les Miles Looking For Answers After Shutout Loss To Arkansas

Les Miles was left looking for answers after his LSU Tigers dropped a 17-0 game against the Arkansas Razorbacks on Saturday. Les Miles’ team had been climbing the rankings for most of the season, before they lost a close game against the Alabama Crimson Tide last week, and a second straight week now has the Tigers sitting at 7-4 on the season.

Thanks in part to Miles, LSU fans rarely have to deal with seasons in which their team loses four games, but Les has had some struggles on offense this year, and Saturday was no exception. As he said in a video posted by the Times Picayune, the LSU offense has to get better if they don’t want this season to truly be a lost year. An SEC Championship isn’t in the card for Les Miles and his team this year, but now he just has to get the team playing better as they finish up the regular season and start heading out for their bowl game.

The numbers following the game are kind of staggering. This is only the second time LSU has lost back-to-back games under Les Miles. It was the first time Arkansas shut out an opponent since 2006 against Utah State. It was the first time since 2002 that Arkansas shut out an SEC opponent. Les Miles can’t be happy that the game was also the first conference win second-year Razorback coach Bret Bielema has garnered.

“It is so exciting,” Bielema said after the game. “I can’t say as a 5-5 coach that I enjoyed the championship years somewhere else any more than to see the growth out of some of these guys, and to see the genuine expression at the end of the game there and to see these guys grab me.”

It is likely even more painful to Les Miles that the loss comes against a team that still needs to win some in order to actually become bowl eligible.

One of the things Les Miles pointed to as a reason his team simply couldn’t generate any offense was a hangover from the loss to Alabama. His LSU Tigers thought they might knock off one of the top teams in the country as they went punch for punch until overtime. Eventually, Alabama was able to win 20-13 in overtime, but picking up and moving on might have been a problem for the Bayeux Bengals. Les Miles isn’t going to let excuses stand for long, as he’ll have a week off and then prepare for the regular season finale against Texas A&M.