Advertisement
football Edit

Late push for recruits is what KU fans can expect of Les Miles

Miles is one of the better recruiting head coaches in the country

The Kansas staff pulled off some major surprises in the late period and that might give fans a glimpse of what the future holds.

For those who know Les Miles’ background and have followed him, landing big talent on the recruiting front isn’t a big surprise.

Jimmy Smith covered Miles for six seasons at LSU. He worked for the Times-Picayune where he was the beat writer covering LSU and the last two years for Rivals.com. Smith has followed what Miles can do with recruits.

“When I think of Les as a recruiter, the first phrase or term that comes to mind is a closer,” Smith said. “Les is extremely good at getting parents to trust him and allowing their sons to be a part of his program. If a family's on the fence and they sit in front of Les, nine times out of 10, when they come out of that office, they're a part of that program.”

The old saying in recruiting when you win the mother over your chances go up to sign a recruit. One of his strengths is relating to parents.

“The mothers really like him,” Smith said. “He's a really tough guy, and he comes across as kind of quirky and very charismatic, but he's an extremely tough guy. That relates to a lot of these fathers. So he's really good with the family, and the parents.”

Miles and his staff will spend a lot of time working on recruiting and that goes when they are on the road or in the office. It is something they will go over in great detail.

“He understands the importance and value of recruiting, so they have a lot of open table discussion as a staff,” Smith said. “This is the way he kind of operates as a staff recruiting, when they have their meetings, it's everybody's chiming in, they're working through roster management, and numbers.

“He's got a really good feel for managing numbers and rosters to make sure there aren't any deficiencies or any depleted position groups. And he's very thorough, and he's on top of the staff to make sure that they're very thorough in their recruiting.”

Advertisement