BATON ROUGE, La. – The text arrived to Will Clapp’s cell phone while he was trying to squeeze in his customary Friday nap. A message to the entire LSU football team requested that players arrive at the football facility earlier than normal for “special team meetings,” recalls Clapp, a three-year starter on the Tigers’ offensive line. LSU was scheduled to host Texas A&M the next day in the 2015 regular season finale, and its coach, Les Miles, would reportedly be fired after the game.
That afternoon, Miles held three different meetings with his team, dividing players up by classification–walk-ons, underclassmen, upperclassmen–and delivering to each a different message.