You've heard the Les Miles jokes by now. The man has transformed into a verb, as in, "Be careful you don't Miles that finish."

LSU's national championship coach has become a walking punch line. My favorite on Twitter, in a nod to a "Saturday Night Live" skit: "Les Miles worse than MacGruber at clock management."

In all seriousness, how does this keep happening? How does an SEC coach with a national title make so many mistakes that ESPN can legitimately run a poll asking fans to name that coach's worst end-game blunder?

(By the way, you know your end-game blunders are bad when, as of Sunday afternoon, the Tennessee fiasco -- as bad a finish as there will ever be in college football, by both coaches -- only led the Ole Miss disaster from last year by 2 percent.)

Miles promised many times to fix LSU's recurring problems with clock management. It's been an issue for several seasons, even back when the Tigers won the national title in 2007.

"He got too cute again," CBS analyst Gary Danielson said Sunday in Birmingham before speaking at the Over the Mountain Touchdown Club. "It could have been a total disaster. It was just a disaster."

There's a coaching obituary if I've ever heard one.

Despite the promises of correcting basic clock management, there was LSU looking lost again Saturday. More than 20 seconds ticked off during a third-and-goal from the 1 while trailing 14-10. LSU tried changing personnel even as the clock kept ticking.

The game would have been over if not for a desperation shotgun snap by center T-Bob Hebert that went awry. Hebert only snapped the ball because he remembered how a potential winning drive stalled last year against Ole Miss as time ran out.

Tell-tale sign a coach has problems: His center, in desperation mode, applies more common sense than the guy on the sideline making $4 million a year.

Danielson has believed for years that LSU tries to do too much on offense instead of focusing on something it can do well. Not just at the end of games, but for all 60 minutes.

"They have a really creative offensive coordinator in Gary Crowton," Danielson said. "He tries to use all his players, all his quarterbacks, all his formations. And at the end of the game, that term 'fog of war' applies to sports. ... It's just the confusion and lack of communication, and it gets amplified at the end. People try to do too much. Too many assistant coaches yelling to put their guys in."

There were blunders throughout the last drive. LSU had already burned all of its timeouts, in part because play calls were coming in from the sideline late all game. Without a timeout, LSU picked up a delay-of-game penalty on fourth-and-nine on that same drive.

Yet amazingly LSU still won, thanks to Tennessee having 13 players on the field due to the confusion of LSU's substitutions. The Mad Hatter had 'em right where he wanted them.

Tennessee coach Derek Dooley questioned whether the umpire allowed the Vols to match up when LSU made personnel changes. But the TV replay showed enough time was granted.

"Derek was emotional. It was after the game," Danielson said. "He didn't have the ability to watch the tape like we do. The cute answer: He had time to get 13 people out there, you have time to get 11 out there."

Explaining how Les "Milesed" another finish can't be explained so easily. Danielson was at a loss. He said he reacted the same way we all did upon learning of another mishap: Not again.

"They say he may be the luckiest coach in football," Danielson said. "I go watch his practices, and it's a great practice. His kids love him. He cares about his players. He gets the most out of them. He's highly disciplined. Everything the way he learned it. But in the end, he tends to freelance a bit. Hopefully it doesn't cost him a great job there."

The more you watch Les Miles, the more you wonder: How can it not? Jon Solomon's column appears on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays in The Birmingham News. Follow him on Twitter at @jonsol. Write him at jsolomon@bhamnews.com.