A Two Month Search For This? (Nov 16)

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BATON ROUGE – Close your eyes and imagine it is a year ago when then-LSU coach Les Miles was about to be fired, and someone tells you that the next coach is going to be LSU defensive line coach Ed Orgeron.

Now, open your eyes.

Orgeron - a career journeyman coach, a failed head coach and a somewhat successful short term head coach at USC and LSU – is LSU’s next football coach.

“I’m the search,” LSU athletic director Joe Alleva said two months ago after firing Miles.

“I’m worried,” I said.

Well, I’m still worried.

Alleva first started looking for a new head football coach more than a year ago and started thinking about looking for a new head football coach when he came here in 2008. And this is it?

This is an embarrassment.

Texas’ search and hire lasted a few days, and it’s going to get the coach LSU has been thinking about maybe hiring for two months – Houston’s Tom Herman, a bright rising star at 41.

Herman could have been LSU’s first true offensive head coach hire in history. Instead, it hired a defensive line coach whose new offense got shut out against Alabama, which allowed an average of 36 points to Ole Miss and Arkansas this season, and managed three points through more than a dozen goal-line plays in a 16-10 loss to Florida two weeks ago.

According to Kirk Bohls, an extremely credible reporter who covers Texas for the Austin American-Statesman, Herman’s agent Trace Armstrong told LSU it could hire Herman for $6 million. “And LSU said no,” Armstrong said, according to Bohls.

Maybe, that’s not true. Herman, who coached at four Texas colleges (Texas as a graduate assistant, Sam Houston State, Texas State and Rice) before becoming Houston’s head coach two years ago, was probably going to Texas no matter what LSU offered. But LSU should have offered the $6 million or $7 million.

And LSU should have offered Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher $8 million. He may still have stayed, but you have to get the money out there. You have to try.

But LSU did not max out. Instead, in the end, it took a Black Friday approach to this search and ended up with a bargain, but this could be a nightmare in the long run.

Orgeron’s yearly salary will be about $3.5 million, which means LSU will save $1 million the coaching swap between Orgeron and Miles. And Orgeron can throw a large salary at Alabama offensive coordinator and old USC buddy Lane Kiffin, who makes $1.4 million at Alabama. LSU now has a lot of money left over. It does not owe Orgeron a buyout.

LSU made a similar bargain move when it hired Oklahoma State coach Les Miles after the 2004 season. It saved a $1 million in the Nick Saban for Miles swap when Saban left for the Miami Dolphins.

So, that makes 17 years since LSU boldly set the market for a new football coach as it did when it hired Saban from Michigan State in 1999 for $1.2 million. During the negotiations, then-LSU athletic director Joe Dean and others with LSU balked at the idea of paying so much for a coach.

And then-chancellor Mark Emmert stepped in and stopped the quibbling between Saban’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, and LSU. “Pay him what he wants.”

And it was done. Emmert wasn’t looking for a bargain. He was shopping at Neiman Marcus, and he got value over a long period of time because he didn’t settle for journeyman defensive assistant coach Phil Bennett, who could have been hired at bargain prices. He didn’t settle for defensive coordinator Mike Archer as Dean did after the 1986 season and found himself looking for a new coach just four years later … and another just four years later … and another just five years later.

Instead, Emmert’s shot at the moon launched LSU’s football future from bad and average and very good every now and then over the previous quarter century to sustained greatness for more than the next decade. There were national championships in the 2003 and 2007 seasons after none since 1958 and a national championship game appearance at 13-0 in the 2011 season. There were Southeastern Conference titles in 2001, ’03, ’07 and ’11 after none since 1988.

LSU was never greater for longer than in that span because Emmert set the market. He didn’t try to get close to setting the market as Alleva just did, which was $6 million for Herman and $7 million for Fisher.

Maybe Alleva would not have gotten either for even those prices, but he should have tried harder and higher.

That’s what one has to do to be great. One doesn’t settle.

One also interviews a few other sitting head coaches out there and gets one. My goodness, Alleva fired Miles on Sept. 24 and really started looking around late last year, and he couldn’t find a bright, 40ish, rising coach out there other than Fisher and Herman? Alleva’s template for this hire resembles that of his Johnny Jones hire in basketball.

Alleva’s “search” for a football coach in the end didn’t leave Nicholson Drive. It didn’t even make it to Cyber Monday.

How far has LSU fallen? To a career journeyman coach, a failed head coach and a somewhat successful short term head coach twice. Orgeron may work out. He is talented. LSU has looked very good through most of his 5-2 run, but the wins were over unranked teams and the losses were to ranked teams. Still, he may be the ultimate diamond with the rough voice. He definitely could work out in the short term. But what happens after defensive coordinator Dave Aranda and Kiffin – if O gets him – move on to head coaching jobs? What happens long term?

I hope he wins, because he is a great person. But I would not have hired him.

Remember this, Orgeron is the only Ole Miss head coach out of six including him – three before him from 1983 to 2005 and two after him following 2007 – who did not have at least one winning season through three or more years on the job. Those five coaches, by the way, had 20 winning seasons in 30 years. Orgeron lost all three seasons, going 10-25 overall and 3-21 in the SEC, without probation. That was a decade ago, but that is still LSU’s new head coach.

And it’s not a dream.

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