The "Dark Ages" of LSU Football

the dark ages had nothing to do with cholly mac. early 90s with hallman were the dark ages

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Cholly Mac

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those weren't the "dark ages"


89-95 were.

Archer was too young. From there, a mistake was made on Curley but at the same time LSU was fricking cheap. Didn't invest in any infrastructure, coaches, anything. Run like a mom and pop business. Didn't invest in the product and it showed. Even with Gerry D, LSU went cheap. Too much political BS was involved as well.

Saban forced LSU to re-invest in the program, but in reality it started with Gerry D. Ppl saw the program could compete but Emmertt was as much a force as Saban money wise.


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When Cholly left, what was the state of the team and facilities?

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The team was competitive. Some issues, not a national power but it was a different world back then. LSU went 7-4 the yr after Cholly Mac left and was in the Orange Bowl for the 82 season. Facilities weren't seen as being important like they are currently.

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Why did LSU suck?

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poor coaching decisions by the AD.

we went the cheap route and hired cheap coaches none worse than curly hallman. AND, most people do not remember this but LSU honored contracts in those days (very much like Notre Dame honored theirs with gerry faust). so we didn't fire guys until their contract expired which meant that some recruits were turned off by a HC that had a short contract.

cholly mac's career ended due to recruiting contrictions; first by not recruiting black players and second by not recruiting new orleans or much of north louisiana. he was the I10 recruiter from houston to pensacola.

arnsbarger was an a-hole but was a good football coach and we hired archer to replace him which started our downfall and it did not begin to turn until gerry dinardo came aboard.

Interesting question. When you're on your way to the bottom after being on top, how do you know your in the midst of a decline? At what point do you acknowledge the slide and take corrective action?

Can't blame the "Dark Ages" on Cholly, LSU brought that on itself. After Rein was lost, there was a rush to hire a new coach & LSU felt an "LSU man" would be the best route to hold things together after the trajedy, that didn't work out well. From that point on, until the Dinardo hire, the AD made some bad coaching decisions & basically wasn't putting much into the program. Couple that with the "lack of character" some of those coaches & the players they recruited & allowed to run wild, the AD lost control. It wasn't until the AD realized that to turn this thing around, LSU would have to clean house, hire a man of higher moral, & seemingly intellectual, standards as a coach, & start playing catch up in the funding of facilities & program needs. Once the LSU AD "saw the light", things started to turn around & here we are today.

"Dark Ages" also known as "The Archmanardo Era".

Many great answers here and obvioulsy most all the posters know what they are talking about. I will put in my 2 cents on the Dark Ages question and again I would point to the "Good Ole Boy Network" being part of the problem. Again, Dark Ages not on Cholly Mac. As others pointed out Cholly's problem was that he couldnt beat the Bear but if you look through the years when the Bear got it rolling and the Wishbone attacke and the unbelievable unlimited scholarships back then when Bear would sign players
to sit on the Bama bench just to keep them away from a competing school , no other coach really beat the Bear either with maybe a Bama occassional loss to Johnny Vaught or Shug Jordan but again Cholly Mac's main problem was losing to the Bear and during his tenure at LSU, only 1 losing season at LSU. His other off years was a 5-5-1 record and 6-4-1 and besides the snub from the Cotton Bowl when they chose ND over us he missed only 3 years of Bowl games.



Then the BOS wanted him gone due to not beating the Bear and brought in Dietzel to be the henchman. Remember it well , during 1978 season, we had one loss going into Bama game, we had lost to Georgia in Tiger Stadium and then of course lost to Bama. It was announced that week that after the 1979 season Cholly Mac's contract would not be renewed . We went to play MSU in Memorial Stadium , no emotion, you could tell the players were down or at least played like it and finished up 8-3 and followed up with a loss to Mizzou in the Liberty Bowl. Mac's last season though only 6-5 was probably one of his best years with the exception of the losses to Georgia and Tulane though Tulane had Dr. Roch Hontas and had a really good team. Could go on and on and a booke could be written but I believe Brodhead did some good to begin changing the mindset and definitely Emmert and Saban and though the story be told an Ole Miss

Archer took us in to the dark ages. With his departure, the program was in such a bad spot, neither dinardo or hallman could pull us out.

It was all Brett Favres fault

You referenced my other post, but did you not read the whole thing???

NEVER TO BE SPOKEN OF AGAIN!

Just messin with ya, but shocked to see this thread and 3 pages. Haven't read them yet... this should be a blast to relive.

edited to correct phone typos