re: The "Dark Ages" of LSU Football

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Lsu did very well with stovall

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Not true at all

It all started with the admin listening to the players and hiring Mike Archer. It was down hill from there

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Say what you want about Saban, what it showed the college football world was that LSU was coming out of the Good Ole Boy era. During Saban's era, everything became more professional, like facilities, etc. Hiring Saban was a part of it.

But that actually started under DiNardo. I believe he was a northerner and actually laid a good foundation for Saban. He just never was SEC material, but a far improvement over the guys before him.

We're kind of at a similar crossroads now. I think CLM is fine. Hiring Cam was a great move. Facilities are out of sight. But I truly believe that we don't have the legal recruiting machine other top schools have.

School 2011 2010
Tennessee 1,479,099 1,135,211
Alabama 980,882 870,438
Auburn 950,378 678,936
Georgia Tech 883,430 511,494
Arkansas 666,419 693,486
Georgia 623,224 634,386
Texas Tech 611,910 812,217
Florida 602,929 466,145
Oregon 590,683 622,254
North Carolina 580,200 545,351
Texas 577,976 329,736
Michigan 577,663 489,412
Illinois 545,363 537,773
Army 511,840 476,439
Mississippi 495,233 340,670
Memphis 493,204 406,994
Clemson 490,305 469,003
Nebraska 478,554 344,471
Colorado 470,355 438,289
Iowa State 448,777 447,672
Kansas 442,911 366,331
Washington 440,931 313,631
Florida State 433,236 349,444
Purdue 428,805 528,095
UCLA 412,535 384,100
Arizona 411,785 410,202
California 394,298 319,203
Michigan St. 383,448 390,289
Missouri 363,545 349,734
Kansas State 361,196 363,172
Oklahoma 356,414 452,601
Rutgers 350,261 323,920
Minnesota 348,609 615,063
Kentucky 336,035 279,006
Air Force 335,986 335,986
Ohio State 320,938 297,342
Iowa 307,226 207,117
Mississippi St. 306,469 244,024
*** LSU *** 302,882 450,649

This goes back to THE FENCE. So we don't spend a lot of money recruiting because all instate recruits want to come here and it's a 2 hour drive? When it works, that's great. Forward to 2013.

Recruiting costs are more than travel expenses for coaches. It's having staffers that know every bit and crumb of information on every potential recruits. It's sending out tons of personal materials and letters to keep interest high among targets. Getting the word out.

Schools like Bama and AU either have to or want to do a lot of OOS recruiting. But don't kid yourself. There is a lot of talent in Alabama - it's just not good enough for Saban. If Bama go EVERY top player in Bama over AU, and filled out with OOS, there is no way they'd have the success they have.

If indeed there is a turning point again in LSU football, it is this concept of the The Fence. You will live by it and die by it. As more programs recruit nationally, I can say more often than not we will die by it.

I love our LA players staying home. We need to still want to get them. But on the same token, we have to look OOS strongly as well. We can't live every year with this with instate players. They don't commit early because they know we don't have anyone else better than them from OOS.

The Fence served us well, for a long time. But this is a new era in CFB and technology has shrunk the world. You can be 1000miles away and Skype and Tweet every available minute back home.

LSU coaches are doing a great job considering the recruiting budget and we're flying around in prop planes while the others are in jets. But they need some help in the back office.

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Were you there?

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Yes



Stovall was put in a tough situation. And wasn't a good head coach. But he was a fantastic talent evaluator and a great recruiter. Arnsbarger's first two teams were LOADED with talent that Stovall brought to LSU.

The Dark Ages began with Archer and ended with Hallman. Don't lump Dinardo in with them. That's wronging a guy who did a decent job overall at LSU.

The problem during that period extended beyond the athletic department, though. It was really a bad time to be a student at LSU. Budget cuts were handed down from the legislature and LSU didn't have the philanthropic infrastructure or culture to make up for the losses. Not a single new building went up while I was at LSU from 1989 to 93, and most of the buildings were run down. Broken glass, broken seats, graffiti, etc.

Highland Road flooded on campus all the time. Hell, it seemed like it rained EVERY day. And it was grunge era, so the girls wore nothing but flannel and jeans all the time. And ugly arse hair, too. God, it was a nightmare at LSU then.

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LSU has been declining for 9 years now, like clock work.

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We just had 4 years in a row of 10+ wins (first time in school history), but we're in a decline for the past 9?

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Charlie Mac couldn't beat The Bear. He had some good teams but couldn't get over that hurdle. But his years weren't the dark ages.

Everyone thought Bo Rein was a great hire, then the tragic plane accident. That set the program back a few years since we had to make a quick hire with Jerry Stovall. Stovall is a great LSU man, but wasn't a good coach.

Bill Arnsparger was a good coach. Won an SEC title, but was always looking to go elsewhere. Bolted to UF as AD.

The downfall really started with the hiring of Mike Archer. He was simply too young and not ready to run a program. The athletic dept was chaotic with the Bob Broadhead saga and then bringing in Joe Dean in 1987.

Joe Dean hired Curley Hallman. Enough said.

DiNardo was a good hire and did well initially. His hiring of coordinators did him in. He recruited well and showed everyone LSU was a sleeping giant.

Dean never saw the big picture of what college football was turning into. Facilities were crumbling and it was going take a shitload of money to run a first class football operation.

The best hire LSU ever made was Mark Emmert. He saw the big picture and he made it happen.

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All of this

Many great answers here and obvioulsy most all the posters know what they are talking about. I will put in my 2 cents on the Dark Ages question and again I would point to the "Good Ole Boy Network" being part of the problem. Again, Dark Ages not on Cholly Mac. As others pointed out Cholly's problem was that he couldnt beat the Bear but if you look through the years when the Bear got it rolling and the Wishbone attacke and the unbelievable unlimited scholarships back then when Bear would sign players
to sit on the Bama bench just to keep them away from a competing school , no other coach really beat the Bear either with maybe a Bama occassional loss to Johnny Vaught or Shug Jordan but again Cholly Mac's main problem was losing to the Bear and during his tenure at LSU, only 1 losing season at LSU. His other off years was a 5-5-1 record and 6-4-1 and besides the snub from the Cotton Bowl when they chose ND over us he missed only 3 years of Bowl games.



Then the BOS wanted him gone due to not beating the Bear and brought in Dietzel to be the henchman. Remember it well , during 1978 season, we had one loss going into Bama game, we had lost to Georgia in Tiger Stadium and then of course lost to Bama. It was announced that week that after the 1979 season Cholly Mac's contract would not be renewed . We went to play MSU in Memorial Stadium , no emotion, you could tell the players were down or at least played like it and finished up 8-3 and followed up with a loss to Mizzou in the Liberty Bowl. Mac's last season though only 6-5 was probably one of his best years with the exception of the losses to Georgia and Tulane though Tulane had Dr. Roch Hontas and had a really good team. Could go on and on and a booke could be written but I believe Brodhead did some good to begin changing the mindset and definitely Emmert and Saban and though the story be told an Ole Miss

back in the 80's, MOST of the gifted athletes wanted to go to notre dame and the big 10 because, at the time, they were practically the only teams that were on tv every week. usually, we got one or two games per year televised in the sec.