Because Joe Dean hired Pat Sullivan from TCU and Sullivan had 400k buyout. Joe Dean told Sullivan that he was not paying the buyout. So Pat Sullivan retracted his agreement to come to LSU even though he had already been announced as the new LSU Coach.

Gerry Dinardo was at Vandy and had withdrawn his name after it was apparent LSU was going with Sullivan. Then Joe Dean had to go back to Dinardo and ask him to become LSU’s next Football Coach because Dinardo was the only other “Finalist”.

Then after Dinardo got to LSU he had a decent staff and had a 7 win season followed by a 10 win season and win in the Peach Bowl over Clemson. Then LSU lost both Coordinators to Texas and Michigan State over money.

Joe Dean then refused to give Dinardo enough money to be competitive to hire replacements. LSU’s staff was the 7th highest paid staff in the SEC in a 12 team SEC. LSU actually lost a coach to Mississippi State over pay.

Joe Dean was a horrible AD. Worse than Alleva. When it came time to hire the next coach Emert intervened and ran the search and hired Nick Saban while Joe Dean was put in a damn corner and forced out after Saban came in. Then Skip took over as AD at Emert’s request.

You younger guys who don’t remember how bad Joe Dean was and can only go by your memory of Alleva. He was bad but he had nothing on Joe Dean.

I could go on about Dean running his car off into Campus Lake while watch some coeds jogging.

Then there was Joe Dean having a hit and run in Southdowns and no one could find him for 3 hours.

Joe Dean could not get along with Skip Bertman and tried to force Bertman to move his office from Alex Box Stadium to the Joe Dean Erection (At the time the new Athletic Building) and Bertman told Dean he was not doing it. Imagine being so damn petty and trying to force Bertman (the shining star of LSU) to move when he doesn’t want to move.

Joe Dean held on to Dale Brown until Brown got LSU on to NCAA probation when it was very clear the Basketball program was in serious decline.

There was much more but you get the point.

This post was edited on 12/6/21 at 2:39 pm