Coaches LSU Could Have Had Over the Years Instead of the Ones We Got

Jon Gruden
Jack Del Rio
Jerry Rice

If we had hired Fisher when Saban left, the campus would still be on fire from the riots.

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Jimbo Fisher - hired Les Miles, retained Les Miles

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The "retaining" Miles part is probably accurate, but Fisher was not an option when Miles was hired in 2005. It's revisionist history. There were a LOT of complaints about Fisher back when he was the OC under Saban

Don't forget that Mike Shanahan interviewed for the LSU gig the same week that Spurrier did. Rejected.

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Don't forget that Mike Shanahan interviewed for the LSU gig the same week that Spurrier did

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Alabama,Southern Cal and Texas were looking for Head Coaches at that time as well. Did any of them interview Spurrier or Shanahan?

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Jimbo Fisher - hired Les Miles

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Circa 2005?

Miles was not a terrible hire at the time.

Should of, Could of, Would of.....

Monday morning QBs!

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Miles was not a terrible hire at the time.

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Wasn't he like 28-21 at Oklahoma State? That's pretty meh.

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Bobby Bowden - hired Bo Reins and then Jerry Stovall

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We could not have had Bowden. We were trying to get him, but in later years he said that beating us in Tiger Stadium as part of a breakout season in 1979 convinced him that he didn't have to leave FSU to build a powerhouse, so he decided to stay.

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Steve Spurrier - hired Mike Archer

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Definitely could have had him, but unclear how long we could have kept him if Florida offered in 1990, as they did.

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Jimbo Fisher - hired Les Miles, retained Les Miles

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If you're talking about 2005 ("hired Les Miles"), yes, we could have had him then, but he had never been a head coach, so it would have been taking a risk. Hiring a coordinator from within a successful staff when a coach left is how we ended up with Archer.

Last year ("retained Les Miles"), it's not at all clear that we could have gotten him. Even if he was listening to whoever at LSU was contacting him, it's still very possible he was only playing us for leverage against FSU.

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Pat Sullivan - his name came up regularly in the 80's-90's

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His name not only came up, Joe Dean held a press conference to announce that he was hired in late 1994, only to have a conflict over paying his buyout at TCU ($400,000) screw up the deal. Instead, we got Gerry DiNardo.

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Bobby Petrino
Houston Nutt

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Don't recall our ever being interested in either of these or the media "pushing" them on us, so I don't know when this would have been (2005?). I'm glad we didn't get Nutt, although I have heard before that supposedly he was the one Nick Saban recommended we hire to replace him when he left. Petrino would have been a good one, but his character issues might have led to problems at some point.

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Anyone that I am missing here?

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In 1987, the year we could have hired Spurrier, I believe Gene Stallings was also interested, so we might have been able to get him. ETA: It might have been Shanahan instead of Stallings, or possibly both?

Our options in 2005 would have been much better if Saban hadn't fricked us by waiting until Christmas Day to announce that he was leaving. Urban Meyer, Steve Spurrier and a couple of other good names had already been taken by the time we knew we needed to find someone. Meyer was already being courted by Notre Dame and Florida, so we might not have gotten him, but Spurrier might have been a real possibility.

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Wasn't he like 28-21 at Oklahoma State? That's pretty meh.

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Oklahoma State went to one bowl game in the decade before he was hired and he went to 3 strait. OSU was a terrible program before he got there and he turned it around. 28-21 is a great record for a team that was 38-69-1 the decade before he arrived.