Arnsparger showed LSU its potential

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Arnsparger did make it to Birmingham on Nov. 8 for the Alabama game and won it 14-10 on his way to LSU’s first SEC title since McClendon’s 1970 Tigers. (And yes, the SEC office was in Birmingham at that time, and apparently such an unfair bias did not help the Tide as that was its third of four straight losses to LSU in Birmingham.) Arnsparger was compared to the gruff Bear Bryant, the former Alabama coach who died just weeks after the 1982 season, after he went 2-0-1 against Alabama. Arnsparger is the only LSU coach other than Paul Dietzel (2-0 in 1957-58) and Albert P. Simmons (1-0 in 1895) to go undefeated against Bama.

“Arnie’s Army” then went to its second Sugar Bowl — or BCS type bowl if you would prefer — in three seasons. No football coach in LSU history had a better record after three seasons (1984-86) than Arnsparger at 26-8-2 overall and 13-3-2 in the SEC until Les Miles threw up a 34-6 and a 19-5 in his first three seasons (2005-07). Arnsparger never finished lower than second in the SEC in his three seasons, and that was before divisional play. He was the first to do that over three years since Bernie Moore from 1935-37. Only Miles has done something comparable since as he had the first or second best league record from 2005-07.

Before Arnsparger, LSU had not had back-to-back seasons of nine wins or more since 1972 and ’73. It had not gone to two New Year’s Day bowls in three years since reaching the Sugar in the 1964 season and the Cotton in the 1965 season. There was an 0-for-3 run in the bowl games and a bout with NCAA probation under his term for recruiting violations, but that ended with only minor sanctions.

And then, just like that, he was gone. Feuding with LSU athletic director Bob Brodhead, who brought him to LSU a year after he was with the Dolphins in a fourth Super Bowl (XVII) in the 1982 season, Arnsparger left to become Florida’s athletic director. He left a very good team. Archer took the 1987 Tigers to a 10-1-1 mark — LSU’s first double-digit win season since 1961— and a SEC title in 1988.