re: Napier is the right choice. He is a young Saban.

Watch out for Florida.

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Maybe the fact that his team has been better than LSU with all our top 5 recruiting classes the last two years.

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That's a stretch. Their whole schedule is sun belt teams. Even when LSU sucks they still beat teams that aren't P5 with great regularity. ULL only played two P5 teams in those two years. They beat Iowa State last year and lost to Texas this year. That's 1-1 against good (not great) P5 teams.

And assuming that is the case, then why don't we go get Jamey Chadwell from Coastal Carolina? He's got a better record over the same span and beat ULL last year.

I'm not saying Napier is a bad coach. I'm sure he's very good. But I don't see how a program like LSU that has so much invested in their football program can risk getting a HC that has no experience at the P5 level. That just seems like a crap shoot.

Make it 4.

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He worked for Saban, but only as a WR coach, right? Why is he in the mix?

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He worked first as an analyst, then promoted to WR coach, then as quality control being the back end (non-coach) version of recruiting coordinator.

If you notice Napier and Burton Burns would both be moved back and forth from "in front", i.e. a recruiting coach, to "in the rear". Saban liked to have one working the shadow staff for recruiting and one working the legit recruiting coaches. And I'll also note, in the few documented cases, reports or pictures, either Burns or Napier were always with Saban on home visits. Those were his two most trusted recruiting advisors (I'd say Burns was 1a). But Saban's shadow staff does ALOT of recruiting other than visits. It's a division of labor so that the coaches that can make visits do so at the maximum rate and the RC on the shadow staff is doing everything but that and providing the resources (the data behind the sales pitches) at the same rate to match those in front of recruits.

One of the reasons they alternated was because that rate of being in front of recruits burns people out. It's one of the reasons they have such a high turnover on staff. But Saban managed Burns and Napier in way so they didn't get overworked over years so they'd provide the consistency in the process as long as he could.

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He's had that previously bottom of the barrel pit stain program in the Top 25 for the last 3 years.

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They were not "bottom of the barrell". Hudspeth had winning seasons and bowl appearances right before Napier became the HC.

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They were not "bottom of the barrell". Hudspeth had winning seasons and bowl appearances right before Napier became the HC.

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That isn't entirely accurate either.
Huds' last 3 seasons:
5-7
6-7
4-8
He had 4 straight 9-4 seasons (2011-2014) and had to vacate 22 of those wins due to academic fraud and paying players.

I've been outspoken in how much I like Napier, but the "next Saban" talk is hyperbole. He's learned under Saban and has used Saban's structure to build the ULL program. O did the same thing when Kiffin talked to him about how Nick built his staff.

I won't be upset at all if Napier becomes the pick, but I will be honest that he is the riskiest of the names being tossed around.