re: Finebaum: LSU's Success for Years to Come Due to Saban

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How good were you anyway if you violated NCAA rules?

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You really didn't ask that did you?

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SEC Championships and a National Championship in 11 years under Spurrier does. Florida was nothing before Spurrier got there. To argue otherwise is stupid

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SOS took Florida to the next level, there is no doubt about that. To say they were nothing before that is stupid, when he played there he won the Heisman and an Orange Bowl

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too bad for you saban's player are gone

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Get lost LuckyLee and don't come back, ever. Your sole purpose here is to flame.

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SOS took Florida to the next level, there is no doubt about that. To say they were nothing before that is stupid, when he played there he won the Heisman and an Orange Bowl

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Yeah, Spurrier won the Heisman in 1966, Billy Cannon won it in 1959, LSU won a National Championship in 1958. A Heisman Trophy and an Orange Bowl Victory means nothing in the scheme of things. Granted, Florida had a few decent years, including the 5 they were on NCAA probation, but they didn't resemble the Spurrier teams at all. Spurrier put them on the map and made them a hell of a team.

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but they didn't resemble the Spurrier teams at all.

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I never said they did, someone said they were terrible, b4 SOS, that is not true, they were a good, 2nd tier program. He took them to the next level. I don't believe the only options are great or suck. Florida was good B4 SOS, with him they were great. Think of it as going from B- student to a A student.

The real reason for LSU stepping up to the next level was Mark Emert(sp)

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I just wonder then what happened to his "influence" at Michigan St.?

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That is a very good point.

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And when Saban leaves Alabama for his next "dream job",

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This won't happen unless The Hat leaves and LSU has an opening...

People on here FAR exaggerate the clout our program had before Saban. Basically, minus a few years in the 80's, LSU had been a non-factor since the early 70's. This is just a fact.

Let's look at the records in the years prior to Saban:

-8 losing seasons in 11
-10 losing seasons in 20.. that's just below .500, not counting the mediocre years
-No major bowl wins from 1969-1999

I'd compare our program back then, in terms of consistency and prestige, to Arkansas presently. Couple of 7-8 win seasons, a very good season here and there, but for the most part irrelevant and mediocre. No one was surprised that we sucked. When people talked about LSU's prestige in the 1990's they were mostly living off the 50's and 60's.

It's pretty telling that in 1999, when Saban took the job, it was largely because no one else wanted it.

Saban laid the ground work not only for Miles, but any other coach that may come after him. I don't interpret this as a knock on Miles, but it's just a fact... without Saban's tenure here, we are most likely still an irrelevant program.

I agree with you Carlos. And I would add that the culture changed with Emmert, Bertman and Saban working together. It takes a full leadership commitment to achieve excellence that is why you have to include all three in the culture change agrument. The overall commitment to excellence is recommunicated when Laval and Brady are let go by Bertman and Miles moves Malveto on because they were good at times but not good enough for the culture of excellence. If the current leadership doesn't maintain that commitment then inertia will take the program down a few notches over time. Just my take on it.

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At the time Sabin was hired there was a great deal of intrest from other coachs. Emmert had increased the upper limit for salary. Sabin was his choice.

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Wrong. We pursued two other coaches- Dennis Erickson and Butch Davis specifically- only for them to tell us no. No other major coach was interested. We were pretty much at a dead end when Emmert pulled off the Saban hire, and it was considered to be completely out of left field.