History lesson on 90s football?

Outside of our upset wins over bama in 93, florida in 97 and Kevin Faulk's carrer, LSU fans do not talk about the 90s

Archer was on staff. Players and a lot of fans wanted him because of the programs renewed success and he got the head coaching job. Wasn't a terrible coach but not a good recruiter. Just wasn't ready. That really started the 90s slide.

Bill arnsparger had LSU on the cusp of greatness much like Saban he was an NFL coach who turned our defenses into some of the best LSU has had. When he left even though he told us Mike archer wasn't ready we hired his defensive coordinator to replace him on the cheap. The administration was much like it is now with a bozo as ad and a ton of political influence and good ole boy type decision makers. Archer had success in his first couple of season having been left with a roster full of LSU greats but took a team that had won an sec title and with mostly the same personnel had a 4-7 season in Tommy Hodsons Sr. Year. He failed to recruit and when he was finally terminated the cubbard was bare. Hallman took over and had some decent recruiting cycles but never had the love of his players. Hallman was hired because of the success he had at southern miss that was mostly due to Brett Farve and Jake Reed he came in acted like a child while using extreme and unfair discipline on his players to which they didn't respond well to. His tenure was the worst at LSU by far of any coach in the modern era for sure. When he was canned we hired Jerry Dinardo who made it a mission to personally visit every high school and recruit as tirelessly as possible. He brought back the magic and injected new life into the program landing some impressive recruits though he was never able to knock down the New Orleans wall that LSU couldn't seem to crack in recruiting. Dinardo was having a successful run very miles like until he lost his OC and DC and his replacement hires were not very good leading us to 7 wins in 2 years combined. He was fired and Nick Saban took over the rest is history.

Archer was an internal promotion, loved by the players, who actually showed up at the BOS meeting to "demand" Archer be hired.

Archer road Arnspargers coat tails, but he couldn't recruit and it faded quickly. Then came the Hallman experiment that soon gave way to the Dinardo regime. The only thing Dinardo could do was recruit, so the cupboard wasn't completely bare when Saban arrived.

Archer's hiring is eerily similar to O's hiring pattern, hence the upset from fans that lived through it before.

Only thing I can add is I really became engaged with LSU football in 1995. I was 13 and I remember my dad calling me from work one day saying, " the news just said LSU got Marshall Faulks cousin and he might be better than Marshall ". Well I don't know if he was or wasn't better, but man what great memories from just 95.

Faulk
Booger
Wiley
Northern
Wilson
Kennison

Just a few of the special names from 95.

Gerry dinardo might have failed but he brought back the magic.

White home jerseys.
H style goal posts.
Bring back the magic game (auburn)

He is actually who I would compare Orgeron to and not archer. Can recruit , bring energy, but only as good as his coordinators. We will see how it plays out. People always point to tepper as dinardos demise, but defense was ok in 99( horrible in 98). Morris watts left in 99 and man was our offense terrible that year.one bad year of defense and one bad year of offense = Fired.

Hallman was BAD and Archer ended BAD

Mike Archer was the head coach of some really talented football teams in 1987 and 1988, and was successful with those teams. He lead LSU to a Gator Bowl victory in 1987 when the Gator Bowl was a big deal.

In 1988, even though LSU had the same conference record and beat Auburn earlier that year (Earthquake Game), Auburn went to the Sugar Bowl and LSU went to the Hall of Fame Bowl (Outback Bowl now) and lost a tough game to Syracuse.

In 1989 and 1990, LSU had leftover talent from the Arnsparger (sp?) days, but Mike Archer failed to bring in any big name talent to shore up the program, and LSU football fell apart. In 1989 he went 4-7, and in 1990 he went 5-6 but beat a really good A&M team, 17-8. Todd Kinchen single-handedly won that game. Well, that's the way I remember it, anyway.

There was nothing wrong with talent in the late 80's early 90's. I am in no way saying it was as good as today but it wasn't bad either. Everyone of the them teams had enough to talent to go 8-3. The problem with these teams was coaching and leadership from the head coach. The Archer era was a product of him just not being ready to be a head coach. Curly was from the fact that his entire regime was fricked up and the players knew it and had no respect for him. They would do the craziest things during games. For example they came up with the idea of rotating the entire O-line every 10 plays. One game against Auburn they start the game and drive inside the 10 and have 1st and goal. They then proceed to pull the entire starting line and insert the 2nd string despite the momentum the starters had. result, was 3 downs and a missed FG. Talent wasn't the issue it was coaching and program mismanagement.

95-97 was magic,kinda. The rest not so much.