Let's see, on Friday it was announced that LSU had given UM permission to talk to Lester. Upon reading that I imagine most of us thought Miles to Michigan was a done deal. Not so fast! Now we read that Les will receive an extension of his LSU contract. Was the media mistaken in Lester's intentions? Did he deliberately mislead everyone in order to get a better deal from LSU?
Hmmm, I think Les did talk to the UM money men and when the deal was laid before him he came to the conclusion that despite the attention he'd get being the coach of a premier program, one he had ties to and must surely covet, in the end there was one overriding consideration that he could not ignore.
Lester simply could not AFFORD to take the job.
According to CollegeSportsReport.com, for 2006-2007, Lloyd Carr's salary as UM head coach is $1,454,619, slighty more than the $1,450,000 Les makes at LSU. We all know that Miles would have to pay $1,250,000 to LSU if he took the meatchicken job and maybe the aforementioned UM money men weren't willing to substantially raise the salary they pay their head coach nor pick up the tab for the contract buyout. That, in effect, would mean Lester would have to forfeit a year's salary to move to Ann Arbor. I think he did the math and figured out the price was too high.
