re: 1989 Football revisited

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quote: man people are stupid about things they don't know. Archer recruited highly rated players out of texas. most busted out here. Days of Prop 48, things were different in state etc... Archer was not a bad coach. too young when hired as HC- yes. But his recruiting was ranked high, players didn't turn that way. He coached for years in the NFL and NCAA after his time here. Well respected Def Coordinator. Firing him and hiring Hallman was the worst decision this school ever made. Hallman coached HS after here and got canned from that. Are you Archer's cousin? (serious question, because he always comes out of the woodwork on tRant when someone points out the obvious about Archer.) Archer was a good X/O coach, but a horrific -- H0RRIF1C -- recruiter. All you need to know about Archer is that he had guys like Gary Pegues and Tommy Fabacher and Jamie Bice starting against SEC competition. That was the best he could do. To say he left the cupboard bare for Hallman is a gross understatement. Scroll through this List and look at the 1992-1995 draft years, the ones with Archer's recruits as seniors, and tell me he didn't suck at recruiting. quote: 1992 (12 rounds!) 3 57 Marc Boutte, DT L.A. Rams 3 60 Todd Kinchen, WR L.A. Rams 1993 **ZERO** in 8 rounds 1994 2 36 Kevin Mawae, C Seattle 3 69 Harold Bishop, TE Tampa Bay 1995 3 85 Rodney Young, S N.Y. Giants 6 172 Marcus Price, OT Jacksonville So, by 1989, half of Arnsparger's recruits were gone and Archer was having to start standing on his own recruits, not including that he was handed some studs from Arnsparger like Tommy Hodson. He was a terrible head coach. TERRIBLE. Not a natural born leader, and not someone who could match up on the recruiting trail. There is a reason he hasn't sniffed a HC position since then, yet continued to be a good DC.

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Archer was a fair HC as far as bench coach but a TERRIBLE recruiter. In 1989 we had Hodson and Williams and a team that had too many of his recruits and almost all of Arnie's gone. And BA and his staff did a half arse job recruiting his last year. BA was on the outs and already planning his escape from UF and way from his feud with our former AD Bob Brodhead. The foundation laid down by Nader and Stovall (great man and recruiter but awful HC) was undone by Archer's incompetence.

Recruiting classes '88 and '89 are good examples. '88 was technically a top 10 class but overloaded at the top and not very deep. The bottom third of class was made up of projects, lower tier players, and role players. Not enough guys who developed into anything. And we could sign more student-athletes back in the day. The classes of '88 through '90 were perhaps the worst signing classes for LSU in the modern era. Some of Choly Mac's classes toward the end of his regime were not so great - full of overachievers and not enough impact players. But '88 through'90 were worst then even those when looking at not getting enough to fill our needs. Heck, we were struggling to sign a full class in '90 and battling ULL, Tulane and La Tech for a couple or three recruits. LSU should never get in that situation. And then FSU, Miami and Nebraska were taking our premier in state recruits with too much frequency (a trend that actually started during Arnsparger's tenure).

Prop 48 hurt us a lot. The AD, Archer and entire Administration planned poorly for it. And once the student-athletes enrolled they did not have the support system like our current ones have. No Cox Center etc. But even if given the former regime the benefit of the doubt they still failed on evaluations and selling the program.

Hallman was horrendous but he could sell a program. Actually over-achieved in recruiting considering how bad of a Xs and Os coach he was. Ole' Curely was a natural BS'er you know LOL! But too much top tier talent left the state. Totally screwed up Marshall Faulk's and Warrick Dunn's recruitment and several others. So much talent left the state between '87 and '94.