Hayride: Four Things LSU Fans Can Expect Woodward To Address After His First Day Of Work

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The compliance department, headed by Bo Bahnsen, is likely going to be the thing every coach Woodward visits with brings up as something which has to be overhauled with an eye toward cooperation rather than punishment. Bahnsen might not be gone, but he’s surely going to be reined in. And Miriam Segar, who is the associate AD for the non-revenue sports and used to have Bahnsen’s job – she was an influencer during Alleva’s time consulted with on compliance issues – will definitely have her wings clipped, if not more.

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LSU’s women’s basketball program was, not all that long ago, on a similar level to Connecticut and Tennessee, the giants of the game. The Lady Tigers went to five straight Final Fours, though they never quite could get over the hump and win a national title.

When Alleva was the athletic director at LSU it would have been considered fantasy to land Mulkey-Robertson as the women’s basketball coach. Not with Woodward. He’s the guy who lured Jimbo Fisher away from Florida State with a 10-year, $75 million contract to take over as Texas A&M’s football coach, and that was after landing Chris Peterson as the football coach at Washington when it was thought Peterson would never leave Boise State. And Woodward just a couple of weeks ago poached Buzz Williams to coach basketball at Texas A&M with a six-year contract starting at $3.8 million per year (it escalates to $4.4 million in its final year). Splash hires for big dollars are Woodward’s stock in trade, and Mulkey-Robertson is an obvious call.

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One of the things which turned LSU fans against Alleva even before the various public-relations messes he kept getting himself in was the perceived deterioration of the Tiger Stadium atmosphere, something which generates larger and larger complaints from the fans all of the time.

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But there are limits to how far this team can go, and those limits are Mainieri’s responsibility. For example, LSU doesn’t have a single healthy left-handed pitcher on the roster – Easton McMurray is the only one listed, and he’s out for the year. Not to have four or five is a glaring error in roster management, and that’s a gaffe by Mainieri and recruiting coordinator Nolan Cain which can’t be excused. Nor is LSU’s complete dearth of talent behind the plate – these are the worst catchers anybody can remember seeing on an LSU team, both defensively and offensively. Not to mention Zack Watson is the only productive right-handed hitter LSU has, something which might change when freshman infielder Gavin Dugas is healthy in a couple of weeks. Dugas might fix something else which is obvious; namely that LSU is playing two second basemen who offer almost nothing offensively. There are major, fatal flaws to this team which don’t make sense for an elite program like LSU to have.

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