re: Has Dinardo been back in Tiger Stadium since he was canned?

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I don't think there's any sane comparison between Hallman and DiNardo

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Hell no.

Gerry cleaned up his mess. And if not for the bullshite good ole boys running our AD that wouldn't spend a dime, DiNardo could have kept his quality assistants and '98 and '99 likely wouldn't have happened.

How many DiNardo guys were on Saban's first two teams?

Answer: a lot.

I like the position Saban & Miles have LSU in now. Being favored in most games means your pretty damn good & living in Texas I know the Longhorns would love to trade places with LSU. You are right about One thing & that's few nite games, miss that Tiger tradition of tailgating all day with people you don't even know & wishing it would never end.Oh well, here's to the 2014 Tiger team . It's BUGA time.

Description says 1984 but DiNardo arrived in 1995.

The revisionist history of the Dinardo era is absurd. He did everything a coach could do to destroy a program his last two years. His comments after his firing were utterly false & he shouldn't be allowed in the state much less tiger stadium.

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We all appreciate the effort Jerry made however this program was in the ashes the last two years he was here and all because of DiNardo himself.

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when Reese left in 97 and Watts left in 98, Dinardo tried to circle the wagons with loyal guys and basically run the entire program himself. Unfortunately his controlling nature and his paranoia got the best of him and he came pretty close to having a full on emotional melt down.

I know it was a joke, but Archer has already been back and was honored with the 1988 SEC Championship team he coached when LSU honored the 25th anniversary of the Earthquake Game.

Hallman had nothing worth honoring...unless we bring him out at Bryant-Denny one year and honor him for beating Bama and ending their long unbeaten streak. I'm not sure if their administration would cooperate though. That was the only good memory from that era.

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quote: Don't think Gerry has much interest, I've always heard he's pretty bitter. Read somewhere he couldn't even watch the 03 title game because he thought it should have been him there

Troll somewhere else. This is completely untrue.

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Actually, there is some truth in there. I remember reading that article. He said he couldn't bring himself to watch the BCS Championship because it reminded him too much about what could have been. But he also said he kept asking his wife for updates on the score while the game was being played.

He spoke fondly though about LSU and said he had a hard time accepting the firing at the time (because he thought he should have gotten one more year), but he knew that they didn't get it done in the end like they needed to in such a competitive environment. I doubt he'd pass up getting honored in any way though. He has said the fans might not have liked him much during the slide, but said they were still great fans.

If you honestly look back on it, it was almost a miracle to get what we did out of that hiring. We had six straight losing seasons and just had the worst coach in LSU history and we hired a guy that didn't even have one winning season at Vandy (and had lost his last game 65-0). It was a super-saver hire. DiNardo came in and excited the fan base by getting Faulk and a lot of really good Louisiana players. He talked about winning and winning right away. I really liked that about him. He didn't say it was going to take a few years (like Lou Tepper), etc. He knew how important it was to focus on getting the Louisiana talent.

And we did win right away. To come in after Curley and win right away was a monster task. He did almost bring things back to Curley levels with the Tepper D and he was fired at the right time, but the three good years with three bowl Ws and the win against #1 UF were great accomplishments. Saban was a completely different monster, but Gerry D did show LSU fans what was possible coming out of the darkest of periods. We were fortunate we didn't have 10 or 11 losing seasons in a row considering the hire.

Joe Dean told a good friend, former president of the Birmingham alumni association, that JD was the most intelligent person he'd ever run across in sports, graduating with honors from N.Dame. But, according to that conversation, JD was just as bad when it came to people skills. His staffs came to hate him, due to his micro managing & his paranoid personality. FWIW, Joe always claimed he would have preferred to keep him for one more yr but the powers that be wanted JN gone. Knock Joe for being a puppet but he quite literally had no say over any important matters in the athletic dept.