quote:
I've been watching the Tigers since the last years of the Cholly Mac era. As far back as I can remember, LSU fans have been a surly and dissatisfied lot. We had to get rid of Cholly, who had presided over the greatest era of LSU football to that time. Go back and look at what the Tigers did during the 60s. They were a Top 10 of the decade kind of program.

So, we have the tragedy with Bo Rein after Cholly got the boot, then we bring in Jerry Stovall who didn't last very long. Then, we bring in the mercenary Bill Arnsparger, who had great teams, but had some of the most inexplicable losses in LSU history and couldn't seem to win a bowl game. Then, he goes to Florida where he wanted to be. Then, instead of hiring Steve Spurrier or Mack Brown in 1987, we let Arnsparger's DC Mike Archer take the reigns, and he begins our death march after the glorious 1987 season (my first season on campus). We had one more decent year in 1988 then the wheels fell off for seven straight years (2 with Archer, 5 with Hallman). Who can ever forget Curley's confidence building statement when he was first hired: "I can't promise you victories, but I can tell you one thing. This team will be competitive." The score of the Florida game in 1993 was 58-3, and we scored first.

I always liked Gerry Dinardo. His bravado was needed after 7 years mired in the muck. We beat Saban at Michigan State in our bowl game his first year. We had a 10 win season. Even his first bad year, when we went 4-7, wasn't terrible. Go back and check our scores from 1998. We had an incredibly difficult schedule that year, and every game was tight, except we got blown out by Arkansas at the end of the season. Saban came in with Dinardo's players and won right away. Dinardo left the cupboard much less bare than when he arrived.

Wow, someone with an accurate memory. I love it.

We must be about the same age because I was a Cholly (circa 1970's) baby.

Our sentence for helping Mac Pack was 20 years in the coaching wilderness.

I wonder how long the football gods will punish us if we topple the Hat.

Repeat offenders normally get harsher punishment so maybe we'll have to go 30 or 40 years of wishing we still had that crazy talking Miles fella...

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Posted by Nuts4LSU

Washington, DC

Member since Oct 2003

25468 posts

Posted on 3/17/10 at 7:16 pm to SouthernMan

quote:
Our sentence for helping Mac Pack was 20 years in the coaching wilderness.

Revisionist history. The next nine years after he was let go was better than the last nine years he was here. It wasn't until 1989, a full TEN YEARS after he was let go, that the program went into the tank. Unless you think Mac would have coached for ten more years if he hadn't been let go (which would have put him close to 80 when he retired), he would have been gone before then in any case. And even if he did last until then, unless he coached ANOTHER five years (until he was well over 80), we still would have been looking for a new coach around 1990 or 1991, just as we were anyway.

Letting Mac go IMPROVED the program for nine years. Hiring Mike Archer ten years later when Steve Spurrier and others were available was what put LSU in a bad situation in football.