Les Miles uncertain about his future with LSU after Saturday

Glenn Guilbeau | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption Reports: Les Miles discussed LSU future with boosters LSU coach Les Miles discussed his future with the LSU Gridiron Club on Friday, according to multiple reports.

BATON ROUGE — LSU coach Les Miles finally let it out Friday.

“Thanks for a great 11 years,” he said at a meeting of the Gridiron Club booster group at LSU on Friday afternoon, according to multiple Gridiron Club members at the meeting.

“I’ll always be a Tiger,” members said Miles said, and that he added he was at his last Gridiron Club meeting and that he will not coach the Tigers after Saturday’s game against Texas A&M.

“He said, ‘If you go to the bowl game, you won’t see me,’ ” said one longtime member of the Gridiron Club, a group that meets on the Friday before home games in the team room of the LSU football facility. “Everybody I talked to left feeling like he was telling us goodbye.”

Other people at the meeting said Miles was saying his goodbyes in case he doesn’t return.

“He was talking real low almost like he didn’t want us to hear,” said another Gridiron Club member.

LSU sports information director Michael Bonnette refuted various publications that reported that Miles said he was leaving LSU at the Gridiron Club meeting.

“He said he didn’t say he was leaving and that he wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” Bonnette said.

ESPN's Maria Taylor interviewed Miles later Friday. Speaking of the booster meeting, he said, "I had no suggestion that this was going to be my last game in Tiger Stadium."

When asked at a press conference Wednesday if the game Saturday would be his last, Miles said, “I have no idea.”

After the stories began circulating Friday afternoon, the official Twitter page of the LSU football program, @LSUfball tweeted, “Contrary to media reports, LSU coach Les Miles has not resigned nor did he indicate he was resigning when speaking to a booster group today.”

Contrary to media reports, #LSU coach Les Miles has not resigned nor did he indicate he was resigning when speaking to booster group today. — LSU Football (@LSUfball) November 27, 2015

None of the stories, however, reported that Miles said he was “resigning.” In fact, no stories for the past two weeks about Miles’ shaky future at LSU have said he will resign. If Miles’ resigns, LSU does not have to pay him a $10.7 million buyout, according to his contract. If LSU fires Miles, it will have to pay him a $10.7 million buyout.

LSU officials have continued to refuse to confirm publicly that Saturday night’s regular season finale against Texas A&M will be Miles’ last as LSU’s coach, but signs have pointed to and sounded like the end of an era at LSU throughout this week and into Friday.

"If you look at the great number of men that I've been fortunate to meet and coach at LSU," Miles waxed as he closed his weekly radio show Wednesday night, "guys that have put team in front of themselves and guys that really grew up and matured and led our team and the many teams that we've had and the experiences that we've enjoyed, the highs and the lows have been tremendous."

On the day Miles made those comments, LSU athletic department officials — per a request by USA TODAY Sports — were trying to decipher the wording of Miles' buyout in his contract to ascertain whether he would be paid $15 million for being fired by Dec. 31 or $10.7 million, which would be the buyout total less the $4.3 million yearly salary package money he will have received this year by Dec. 31. The contract states, though not clearly, that Miles would get the $15 million minus what he makes in the dismissal year. Miles' agent George Bass told USA Today that Miles would get $15 million, period.

Meanwhile, Miles has tried, with admittedly not much success, to focus on the game between his Tigers (7-3, 4-3 Southeastern Conference) and Texas A&M (8-3, 4-3 SEC) that kicks off at 7:30 p.m. ET on the SEC Network at Tiger Stadium.

"I have described the perimeter," Miles said Wednesday after practice. "I don't know that I'm very successful in this endeavor. Certainly, we've run into distractions before, but this seems to be a pretty prevailing and evident distraction."

Miles looked back on the early days of his LSU career on his radio show Wednesday night.

Miles, 62, has proven to be very good as a coach and will bring in a 110-33 overall record in 11 seasons at LSU for a .769 winning percentage to the Texas A&M game. Miles is 60-27 in the SEC for a .689 winning percentage. He won a national championship and the SEC championship in the 2007-08 season and went 13-1 with a national championship game appearance and an 8-0 SEC championship in the 2011-12 season. He won the SEC West in 2005 and won 10 or more games in 2005, '06, '07, '10, '11, 12' and 13.

But he dropped to 8-5 and 4-4 in the SEC in the 2014 season. LSU got off to a 7-0 start this season and was No. 2 in the initial College Football Playoff top 25. But the Tigers have lost three consecutive games by 14 points or more for the first time since the 1966 season.

In discussing senior night for his players Saturday, Miles could have been talking about himself when he said, "What you have to do is leave the tears alone and regroup, and let's go play. I think that'll be very similar in this event."

Glenn Guilbeau covers LSU athletics for Gannett Louisiana.

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