Past LSU Coaching Searches

Before hiring Miles, Skip Bertman interviewed Bobby Petrino and tried to interview Jack Del Rio. Skip and co. did not like Petrino. Del Rio freaked out when he got to the restaurant to interview, sat in the parking lot on the phone with his agent, and never went inside.

I was too young to care much abouth the DiNardo and Saban searches, I remember Pat Sullivan was a candidate before DiNardo was hired. RC Slocum might have been a candidate for the Saban hire.

For saban hire, people wanted Dennis Erickson initially

I remember reading here that Saban endorsed Nutt for the LSU job upon his departure but it's never been corroborated.

Don’t remember Dinardo. But both Saban and Miles were unknowns that hire came from nowhere. Wasn’t much fanfare to either at the time.

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Saban was the first college coach to be paid over a million.

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No, but there were only a few big established names like Bowden and Spurrier making it at the time. LSU was the first random program to “pay up” for a hire and it took people by surprise.

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Saban was the first college coach to be paid over a million.

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No, when he signed at LSU, there were three other coaches making at least a million a year. They were Bowden, Spurrier, and Fulmer. All of whom had won national titles in the five seasons prior to 2000.

LSU had planned to hire Pat Sullivan away from TCU but that fell through and they went with Gerry DiNardo.

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Dinardo and Vandy ended up in court over the buyout

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And it was only $250,000. How times have changed.