Why Ensminger is the wrong hire and why it doesn't matter if the insiders are full of it.

So I honestly got so mad this morning reading this board that I had to make an account and melt. I’ve always lurked. I’ve never posted before. I don’t care if you’re gentle. Imma man. I’m forty.

I am on my lunch break, not billing, halting my progress as a human, because some of these posts are going to make blood leak out of my eyeballs.

1. Steve Ensminger is objectively not the right hire despite the fact that LSU’s offense improved under his watch.

This makes no sense to me whatsoever. It shouldn’t make sense to any fan of LSU anything. Seriously. I wanted to be empathetic and say that people just like to be positive, like to “let it play out” and all that other milk toast garbage but I just can’t. Here is why you shouldn’t just “let it play out”:

- You, we, LSU fired a man, who was 114-34 at LSU, won two SEC titles and one national championship in 12 years, and by everyone’s account LOVED LSU because he had fallen behind. He had slipped, collapsed some (me included) would say and he refused to change his approach in order to succeed, and then he lied about it to whoever would listen. And we all watched the results. We watched the results on 1.9.12, and in every step down season afterward.

LOVING LSU IS NOT ENOUGH. LSU DEMANDS EXCELLENCE.

We fired this man, AND WE WERE RIGHT. We were right because LSU had developed a culture of excellence on the football field. A culture of saying “good isn’t good enough”. We decided to fire Les because we all remember 1992 and we all looked in the mirror and said we weren’t going back. Les was headed that way and he didn’t give us another choice.

- After firing Les Miles, LSU completely crapped in its pants in replacing him. As soon as the search got difficult, (because of course excellence can’t be difficult) LSU ran home to mama and hired Ed Orgeron. LSU hired a career assistant who was a disaster at leading a program. And you hired him, KNOWING HE WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH, based on a sales pitch that:

“We are going to find the best offensive coordinator in football”

- Now regardless of whether you believe he was just talking about Lane Kiffin or not. It is a fact that he said that. It is a fact that this whole Ed Orgeron turd sandwich was served to us with the promise that he would hire assistants WHO WERE ACTUALLY GOOD AT THEIR JOBS and he would recruit and say “We Comin” and other stuff that I guess is worth 3 million a year.

I’m going to leave out the Canada drama because I can look at Matt’s resume and see that he has an authority problem. It is not fun to be Matt Canada’s boss. I don’t know what happened with Matt Canada. But I do know everyone who talked about him who isn’t friends with Ed Orgeron said he was an offensive genius.

SO YOU FIRE HIM AND REHIRE YOUR INTERIM. HAVEN’T WE ALL SEEN THIS MOVIE??

Steve Ensminger isn’t bad. He’s ok. I was as happy as anyone when we started moving the ball last year. I’ve met Steve Ensminger, (very briefly) and he seemed like a real good dude. I’d let Steve Ensminger babysit my kids. He loves LSU, and he’s not bad. But nobody fired Les Miles for guys who love LSU and aren’t that bad.

We fired Les to get back to being excellent.
And Steve Ensminger is a 59 year old tight ends coach with a long resume of being NOT GOOD at being an offensive coordinator, who put up 10 points in 2 games against the only two defenses with a pulse last year who told you he didn’t want the job. Oh, and you didn’t even look for somebody else.

THAT’S NOT EXCELLENCE. That’s laziness and mediocrity.

And top it off, it’s just another in the growing list of lies Ed Orgeron has fed to the fanbase. Didn’t we fire the last guy for doing that?
Hiring Steve Ensminger means you aren’t playing for first. It means that you are not committed to doing whatever you can to win. It means that you will try and win only if you have your buddies with you and you’re comfortable. It means you can’t evolve. Sound familiar?

2. It is completely irrelevant if TenthTiger, or any other self-described insider is full of crap or not.

- “This guy’s a fraud!” “They aren’t insiders!” “They have an agenda!” “Fake News!”

Lets assume for a minute that you are right. TenthTiger doesn’t know anything, Random didn’t know anything last year. It’s all BS. Ok. Fine. Doesn’t matter. The results are just as bad as if it were true.

Why would anyone want to be an insider at this place right now anyway? It would probably make you cry or give you erectile dysfunction or some other great side effect.

Here are facts:

LSU fired Les Miles not because he was bad, but because he wasn’t good enough for LSU's standards anymore.

LSU replaced him with ED FREAKING ORGERON. A cube-shaped, know-nothing charlatan who should only be a recruiting coordinator, and wouldn’t even get an interview anywhere else in your conference.

LSU took the sad, lazy, way out and you rationalized it based on the promise of getting “great assistants.”

You won 9 games, still lost to Bama, and still have a guy who kicks field goals on the 1 yard line.
Now you are hiring somebody nobody wanted for a job he doesn’t want, so that your coach can not feel uncomfortable.

I’m not an insider. I don't know things, have access, or believe that ranting here matters. I just have no desire whatsoever to ride the short bus to being Kentucky football so that a bunch of old farts don’t have to be called out. Not without screaming a little first.

Some guy in the other thread said having a Cajun accent doesn’t make you stupid. He’s right, in fact it probably makes you smarter than Joe Alleva. Making stupid hires makes you stupid. Turning one of the best college football programs in the country into a clown show so you don’t have to try harder is stupid.

People aren’t laughing because they don’t understand the process. People are laughing because it’s a joke.

Most people won’t read this and I get it.

TLDR: LSU got played because it was lazy. Ensminger is the lazy hire. Lazy programs aren't excellent. The details don’t matter.

That’s my melt. Geaux Tigers.