ESPN Reporting Les Miles to Michigan

ESPN is reporting, though announcer Kirk Herbstreit, that the University of Michigan will announce early next week that former player, assistant, and current LSU boss Les Miles will be the next coach of the Michigan Wolverine football team.

Sources have told ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit that barring any unforeseen circumstances, Michigan will announce early next week it has reached an agreement with LSU coach Les Miles to be its next head football coach.

Herbstreit is also reporting that Miles will make Georgia Tech defensive coordinator and interim head coach Jon Tenuta part of his staff at Michigan.

While the ESPN report seems solid, I'm siding with M-Go-Blog on this one, which is which reported yesterday that while Miles is indeed the front-runner, and in all likelihood will get the job, it's not as done of a deal as people believe (and the Detroit Free Press essentially reported the same thing this morning that while the job may be "Miles' to lose" it's not a sure thing, yet). I don't want to get my hopes up too prematurely.

The news about Jon Tenuta is new, and while I'll be honest, I didn't know much about him before this morning, I like what I've found out. Herbstreit called him one of the best defensive coordinators in the country, and he knows Ohio State backwards and forwards (he's from Columbus and coached defensive backs for the Buckeyes according to M-Go-Blog. Tenuta could be the first new hire in a new direction and new chapter in Michigan football, one far removed from the Lloyd Carr era, and one which, fortune or failure, you have to give Bill Martin and company credit for going with.

In many ways, Miles is not the "safe" choice, in so far as despite his impressive pedigree and ties to the Michigan program, he is in many ways the "anti-Lloyd Carr" and he doesn't have Carr's support for the job. The safe thing for Michigan to do would be to continue to hire coaches like Lloyd (which is why Iowa's Kirk Ferentz was mentioned so much in the early going -- He's a younger Lloyd Carr) and decide that Miles was too expensive, too much of a wild card, to fit with Michigan. Instead, it looks like Bill Martin and company are taking the plunge with one of the best coaches in college football and somebody who has admittedly coveted the Michigan job for decades. It's the right move, and it's the move Michigan needs to make in order to return their program to elite status. Let's just hope, for Michigan's sake, there are no hiccups in the next week, and Miles, Tenuta, and the rest of what already appears to be an incredible coaching staff, are coming to Ann Arbor.