Continuing to develop my theory re: LSU not paying to play

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Just have to get this off my chest.

Everyone always asks about "why LSU wasn't good before Saban?" "Why did it take so long for LSU to get over the hump?" The answer to those questions lies in a few nuanced reasons, but ultimately, LSU refused to do what was necessary to compete at the highest level. What ultimately turned LSU around was a commitment to leverage our elite natural resources, which of course meant financial investment. We've had a couple of bad omens recently that signal a reversion back to that style of decision making.

1. We heard for the longest time about this state of the art stand alone nutrition center, which ultimately was relegated to a floor in the stadium due to a "climate of austerity.";

2. The failing to fire Les Miles, again, due to a "climate of austerity" and optics interplaying with political pressure to block the logical decision. Of course the latter ultimately cost us the chance at an elite coach and championship caliber season. Fast-forward to present day.

All reports indicate that the administration was VERY inclined to give the job to Ed Orgeron had he won out. I hate that this situation has lead to disparaging of Coach O. I want Coach Orgeron to be a part of this program, recruiting on behalf of LSU, as long as possible. The idea that the administration would have acquiesced to the "easy" decision instead of FIRST, regardless what O did, going after the BEST COACH POSSIBLE, is very disheartening.

They were willing to hand the reins of a top-5 job over to a career position coach that had a less than stellar stint as a HC. That is not the kind of decision that puts you on the plane of teams such as Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, who went out and got their elite candidate. Is that not what we want to be? Don't scratch your head when we are perennially 9-3/8-4 and you actually lose money in opportunity cost of merchandize/seat revenue. Now we don't want to get into a bidding war with Texas and Oregon.

Now we're worried about how much it would cost to go get Jimbo. Going into this with that mentality will only lead to disappointment, and will actually cost you more in the long run. Hopefully LSU isn't reverting back to the pre-2000s where political forces had their thumbs on the decisions of what could be an elite program. With all due respect to Sonny, but I hope his report is incorrect, and simply based on information disseminated to mislead.

Hopefully we already have our guy because based on the mentality signaled in that update (along with others), we've already failed this search.

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Re: Limits to Coaching Salary I can’t say that. I’d like to put a cap on all of them, before we’re paying a million a year to a punting coach. Or I’m going to be that punting coach.

The board did ask me when I got here, ‘How long would you stay here?’ I said, ‘As long as it takes, to become an assistant football coach.’

This environment is so fluid … I remember in 1999, I was at a Big Ten meeting. I was with the president of Wisconsin. The Big Ten agreed to put the breaks on all of this spending. Everybody got into a huddle and agreed to do it together collectively. It took about eight months until somebody hired a big-name coach and just blew open the treasure chest again. I think this is one of the biggest issues we face in intercollegiate athletics, and there is a degree of interest in effectively slowing down the spending. I think if we did, we’d see those other conferences put the brakes on it.

Ten, 15 years from now ... Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Kentucky are already spending half of what we spend. They’re going to be spending one-fifth of what we spend. Take three-fourths of the ACC, three-fourths of the Pac-12… there’s no way Washington can keep up with Oregon in spending. That’s a Nike-sponsored pro team.

I worry about the future of these leagues. How is Duke going to keep up with Clemson? How is Mississippi State going to stay in the game? We can justify spending $120 a year in athletics because we generate $138 million, but we’re one of the few.

It’s just ironic that we generate $120 million in athletics and that’s about as much as we get from the state to run the university. Something is wrong with this picture.

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