re: Arnsparger - History Lesson

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He also was very much responsible for turning the Gators into a football power house. He left LSU and became UF's A.D. where he cleaned house and hired The Ole' Ball coach.

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I think many who are not familiar with the history may get the impression that Arnsparger hired Spurrier as soon as he got to Florida. It was 3 years later; one year before we fired Archer. Spurrier and LSU have always be a little out of sync, like when he accepted the USCe job a month or so before Saban left.

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Couldn't recruit? Somebody on his staff recruited well. When he left after '86 the cupboard was chocked full.

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No

In fact without the transfers from when SMU gets nailed, we could have had a losing season in 88.

Young and Harmon fill a large need in the lb and db corps.

LSU is very thin in the secondary, DL and Lb's when Arnsparger leaves after the 86 season.

Archer was Bill's recruiter, as Bill hated to recruit.

At OL we are stacked, rb has good depth and the wr's as good talent in it's depth when Bill leaves. But then OL loses one key player to quitting football and 2 to injuries and there goes what appears to be the strength of the team in less than 2 years. Harvey gets hurt and a couple of Bill's wr's did not fill the need when Wendell goes pro (long story).

Bill's belief that the team should play level every game, he was not a good coach at getting the team up for the big games or bowl games.

With prop 48 hitting meant that Louisiana recruiting was hit very hard from 86-90, to go with the thin db's, dl and lb's LSU was hard pressed on defense for a number of years to stop any good teams. Archer did go out of state and pulled in many 4-5 star type recruits, but near everyone turned into major bust. Recruiting at that time was not like today, much more on word of mouth, than the skill test the recruits go through today.

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One of the fruits of his brief tenure was the paradigm shift. Before Bill, "success" was beating our rivals (OM and Tulane) and getting a good bowl bid. With him, "success" became synonymous with "championships."

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Arnsparger hired a) Mike Archer and b) Steve Spurrier. Looking at things this way, Arnsparger was indirectly responsible for LSU's demise after his departure (which he undertook the first opportunity he got, btw).

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I think many who are not familiar with the history may get the impression that Arnsparger hired Spurrier as soon as he got to Florida. It was 3 years later; one year before we fired Archer. Spurrier and LSU have always be a little out of sync, like when he accepted the USCe job a month or so before Saban left.

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Jesus Christ, THIS.

People need to stop perpetuating a myth.
Spurrier in 1986 was NOT a national slam dunk coaching god.
Arnsparger did NOT go to UF "with" Spurrier and "fricked" LSU over.

The only way he fricked over LSU was by interviewing for the AD job, denying it til he left, and then leaving LSU in a lurch and basically forcing Archer upon us.

Would have loved to see what Spurrier could do with Hodson as his QB

Two things about Arnsparger. One was it can truly be said that every game he won he did it with Stovall's recruits. Even his first class was put in place by Stovall before Stovall was fired. I can remember the AD who fired Stovall saying in my presence that they had to fire Stovall at the time because his recruits were so good they could never fire him later.

Second, when the same AD went to jail or something, and Arnsparger replaced him one of his first acts was to refuse to interview Steve Spurrier for HC. Spurrier, HC at the time, had actually paid his way to Baton Rouge, seeking to get the interview.

An additional act was after he had screwed LSU every way he could, he took off to FL and hired Spurrier there, after recommending Joe Dean as his replacement as a AD.

Despite being a great X & O Coach (maybe one of the best ever) at LSU, I have very few fond memories of Arnsparger.

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Second, when the same AD went to jail or something, and Arnsparger replaced him one of his first acts was to refuse to interview Steve Spurrier for HC. Spurrier, HC at the time, had actually paid his way to Baton Rouge, seeking to get the interview.

An additional act was after he had screwed LSU every way he could, he took off to FL and hired Spurrier there, after recommending Joe Dean as his replacement as a AD.

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:sigh:

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Those "NFL" players were recruited by Stovall.

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Just a few facts to enlighten the darkness of your ignorance.

Arnsparger did benefit from 4 Classes recruited by Stovall and Archer benefited from 3 classes recruited by Arnsparger.

Stovall's 4 classes had 18 drafted players. Arnsparger's 3 classes also had 18 drafted players.

A modern draft has roughly 250 players drafted. Using this standard, Stovall's classes would have only had 13 players drafted and Arnsparger's 17.

Stovall had 0 1st round picks, Arnsparger 3.

2nd round Stovall 3 Arnsparger 2

3rd round Stovall 6 Arnsparger 2

Top 100 picks Stovall 9 Arnsparger 10


So Arnsparger's 3 classes produced more players that would be draftable today and more that were picked higher.

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Spurrier REALLY wanted to coach LSU (he was killin it at Duke), but Arnsparger knew he would have to compete with LSU and its strong "native" talent base when he moved on to UF.

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I'm sure he really wanted the LSU job as he hadn't coached since the USFL collapsed a year earlier. Spurrier's first year at Duke was 1987, the same year as Archer. He ended up at Duke because he was not the hot property at the time that people imagine he was.