Expectations

We are realistic expectations regardless of who the hire is?

Let's say Saban hangs on for 5 more years at Bama. I don't believe any coach we could hire even if it was some miracle... say Urban Meyer or Belicheck could reasonably expect to win the majority of those 5 games. Saban has recruited 5 (or 6) consecutive #1 classes, and lets be honest, he's simply the best there's ever been. So the best LSU should reasonably expect is to win 2/5 of those games. Beyond that, I think it's reasonable that we should expect to be able to win the majority of the games we play against any of our annual opponents over that same time frame. And by a good margin... 3/5 against Florida and Auburn and 4/5 or 5/5 of the rest of those.

Here'a my point:

Of the viable scenarios we have in front of us, I think any of those could yield a similar 5 year result. As long as Saban is the head coach at Alabama, we would be unreasonable to expect more than 1, possibly 2 playoff appearances. Hell, that would be a great result if Saban left after this season.

So I agree on paper that Herman is the #1 outcome. But end of the day, if we ended up with O, Aranda and a top flight OC, we know that would still likely leave us in great shape as a program to ride out the Saban era.

Stop panicking