Column: Early letdowns lead to early shakeups, including firing of LSU’s Les Miles

In the dazed, chaotic moments after his Louisiana State team lost to Auburn on the last play of the game, Coach Les Miles did his best to stay optimistic.

Asked about the future, he answered: “Take it one game at a time and try to work hard.”

But when the Associated Press poll came out on Sunday, the 2-2 Tigers had completed a perilous drop from No. 5 in the preseason to unranked oblivion and, within hours, Miles was out of a job.

A similar fate befell the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, where things are even bleaker, the Irish slipping to 1-3 with a home loss to three-touchdown underdog Duke.

Coach Brian Kelly spoke of wholesale lineup changes.

“The long snapper’s OK, we’re not going to touch him,” he said. “But everybody else is vulnerable.”

Unpredictability is one of the best things about college football. September has generated its share of Cinderella stories with Louisville, Houston and Texas A&M pulling off upsets and shooting up the rankings.

But for every poll action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the first few weeks have not been as pleasant at other schools.

Three teams in the preseason top 10 — Oklahoma, LSU and Notre Dame — have already lost two games. So have four others — USC, UCLA, Oregon and Mississippi — from the summer’s top 25.

Some of the assumed contenders simply aren’t as good as advertised. In USC’s case, too many turnovers and too many penalties have raised serious questions about coaching.

The turmoil is just as great in South Bend, Ind.

Defense has been an issue for the Irish, who surrendered almost 500 yards in their 38-35 home loss to Duke. No one is calling for Kelly’s head but, with coordinator Brian VanGorder out the door, players are feeling the heat.

Every position in the starting lineup — except for that long snapper — will be reevaluated, Kelly announced in the locker room.

“He kind of pushed the message to us,” quarterback DeShone Kizer said. “Obviously, 1-3 is a horrible way to start a season and in order to move forward from here, there’s going to have to be some changes.”

Notre Dame dropped completely out of sight in this week’s AP poll. LSU, meanwhile, descended into the limbo of “others receiving votes.”

If USC and UCLA felt the sting of last-second losses, it was nothing compared to what the Tigers endured at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

In case you missed it, LSU scored what appeared to be the winning points on a frantic, scrambling 15-yard touchdown pass as time expired. But with players streaming onto the field, dog-piling in the end zone, officials consulted the replay and determined the clock had run out before the ball was snapped.

“I don’t know if I have ever come as close to winning a game as compared to finishing second as I did tonight,” Miles said.

He might have felt that way but last-second confusion — i.e., clock-management issues — had dogged his tenure in Baton Rouge. Yet another nail-biting defeat apparently sealed his fate. Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron also was let go.

“It’s apparent in evaluating the program through the first month of the season that a change has to be made,” Athletic Director Joe Alleva said, announcing that former USC assistant Ed Oregon had been promoted to interim coach.

Not everyone’s season is over, not with two month’s worth of games left to play. UCLA has only one conference loss and can look past its disheartening finish against Stanford toward a showdown with Pac-12 South leader Utah in late October.

Just last year, the Utes missed a trip to the conference championship game by dropping two of their last three.

At 2-2, Oregon has time to turn things around and catch undefeated Stanford in the North. And Oklahoma is still in the running for the Big 12 title.

But the margin of error is considerably thinner for USC. The same is true at Notre Dame.

For programs that start in the top 25, early losses can give way to early anguish. You can almost sense the desperation among some teams that have tumbled out of the rankings.

As Kizer put it: “What we’re doing isn’t working right now.”

david.wharton@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesWharton