re: Can y’all tell me about Smoke Laval?

Smoke didn’t understand how to recruit at Lsu.
He could get all these top recruits to sign, but then lose
the majority of his classes to the draft. You should take a chance
on a few guys that might go pro, but not more than half of your class

He loves Sammy's on Highland

When Skip left, Beetle Bailey and Dan C. should have taken over.

I thought he was a good coach. He won multiple conference championships at ULM, although that wasn’t the best predictor of success at LSU. My kids went to his camp in Monroe and he seemed like a great guy. I was disappointed that he didn’t have long-term success at LSU.

I can't remember the details, but it had something to do with money from the summer baseball camps and maybe housing for the players? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Smoke was a lazy fat arse.

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Smoke didn’t understand how to recruit at Lsu.
He could get all these top recruits to sign, but then lose
the majority of his classes to the draft. You should take a chance
on a few guys that might go pro, but not more than half of your class

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This and other SEC schools started using something similar to TOPS in their states. I've had a few talks with Smoke since he left Toronto Blue Jays. He talked about recruiting and how pro teams recruited against colleges. Giving them more money up front and young kids snapping it up all thinking they would be in the bigs in a few season so smaller salaries didn't bother them.
But recruiting not coaching did him in. Not saying he was the best choice out there. I think hiring Bertman as AD was sketchy.

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Smoke Laval

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Mr. 2 and cue...

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Made Omaha a few times. Skip hand picked him but he also had to fire him. Loves cheese fries.

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Made it his first two years, but it was downhill from there. Was not Skip's first choice, Skip at first was grooming his hitting coach whose name escapes me but that guy ended up leaving before the grooming was over.

Then he wanted to hire another former assistant who was then the head coach at Alabama, but Skip still wanted to control his camp money and that guy said no to that arrangement.

So then it was Smoke. Old school baseball guy, loved to go to Sammy's as the story goes, and any other school he probably lasted a few years longer that here where baseball matters, (It does not in the vast majority of other schools) but it's different here and he probably wasn't the best hire given that fact.

Laval's regular season and sec records his last three years was very similar to Maineri's last three years. As the other poster said, he probably gets another year at school where baseball is not as important. Kudos to Skip and the admin for pulling the plug before things got really bad. Smoke's final signing class did include several guys who were key contributors on Maineri's championship team (Ryan Schmipf, Sean Ochinko, Blake Dean).