re: Who was the biggest recruiting miss in LSU history?

Missing out on Raynoch Thompson always bothered me

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I enjoyed covering high school recruiting but brother it is dead in the water now

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following LSU's HS recruiting is what led me to this site, when Dandy Don got stale...

but yeah HS recruiting is, and has been for a while now, dead as a doornail

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Paul Ott Carruth hurt because we needed RBs

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I actually had no ides he was even a football player…..he had a hunting/fishing talk show in central Mississippi until he passed away several years back. I am shocked that I didn’t know this!

Neil Smith
Not sure about his recruitment by LSU vs Nebraska but that was a big one that got away from the boot.

Brian Mitchell
Again, not sure about his recruitment but he was a great versatile athlete years before Kevin Faulk came along.

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How the hell is that not a miss? That's the definition of a miss. Us losing out on a battle for a stud like Warrick Dunn isn't a miss. That's a tried and lost out to FSU. A big recruiting miss is someone you didn't get because you mis-evaluated.

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OP was….

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I’m talking strictly high school recruiting …and kids that we had a legitimate shot at

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Which I read as a player we were battling for and missed. We didn’t battle for Faulk.

It was an evaluation miss and everyone did it.

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Dak Prescott

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Didn’t Les want him to play TE?

Ike Hilliard
Warrick Dunn
Travis Minor
Major Applewhite
Ed Reed
Raynoch Thompson
Reggie Wayne
Anthony Thomas (we had a 3 headed monster)
Benny Gilbeaux
Marshall Faulk
Neil Smith
Kordell Stewart
Robert Hammond
Terrell Bierra
Shane Matthews
Brock Berlin
Anthony Lucas
The Mannings (pipe dream)
Eric Jefferson (Illinois to prison)
Adam McConathy
Dylan Moses
Cam Robinson
Hootie Jones
Speedy Noil
Landon Collins (one of Saban’s greatest pulls/cheats)
Patrick Surtain
Joe McKnight (thanks, Ed O)
Talman Gardner
Robert Lane
Amik Robertson
Travis Minor
Jonathan Wade
Dak
Bennie Gilbeaux
Thomas Pittman
Walter Young jr
Corey Chavus

It’s McKnight and Collins, given the hype and visibility of the two announcements and the teams we were competing against at the time.


But the one that I always go to when this comes up is Cordarelle Patterson. Yea he was a one and done player, but that’s why it’s easier to see how he would have actually impacted the program.

He was a finished product and made an immediate impact in the SEC at WR and returner, and given how close that 2012 team came to getting back to the SEC/NCG I don’t think there is a more quantifiable loss from missing on a specific recruit.

That 2012 team went 10-2 with only an 8 point loss at BCS Florida when we couldn’t move the ball to save our lives, and of course the 4 point loss to eventual champ Alabama.

Yes, we already had Odell and Jarvis at WR, but they were far from what we remember in 2013 for most of that season. Jarvis in particular didn’t make an impact until the Alabama game and didn’t even have a target in the Florida game, when we were held to 6 points.

And given the loss of Mathieu before the season having Patterson as a returner would have made up a huge deficit in production that he gave us in 2011. The guy became a 1st round draft pick after his one year at Tennessee based on his ability as a returner man and is a future hall of famer as probably the best kick returner in history.

Hell, sign CP and keep TM on the field and that 2012 team is better than 2011.

Regardless, there is very little doubt that he would have made a difference in at least one if not both of those games and LSU probably breaks up the Alabama momentum.


That puts him above a guy like Dez Bryant, that while he was a better player, we won the title in 07 anyway, and Dez likely doesn’t make enough of a difference in 08 or 09 to change those seasons significantly.

Landon Collins was a tough one. I was extremely bummed when we lost Marvin Wilson to Florida state.