How close did Arnsparger have us to a NC??

Miami of Ohio loss possibly cost us our best chance at a NC since 1959

Probably not. The only reason we have done so well since the early 2000's is because(dare I say it) Nick Saban told LSU they needed top of the line facilities to get the top of the line recruits to come here. Lucky for us TAF listened. We've been a top recruiting university ever since.

I will never forget that bastard was at the helm when LSU lost to Miami of Ohio. LSU was ranked 4rth or 5th in the nation at the time.

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Arnsparger (A) hated the recruiting side of football (which I sort of sympathize with),

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His wife (BJ) signed more kids than he did...

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Arnsperger used Stoval recruits and left LSU in worst shape in history.

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I think that's an exaggeration. Arnsparger signed good classes for 1984 & 1985, but maybe got a little lazy about 1986. There's not a whole lot of blame to pin on him for that.

It was the whole crazy/psycho/nutso Bob Brodhead circus that really brought the ship down. Mike Archer's classes for 1987 through 1990 really went down the tubes. (See all LSU signing classes
here.)

Just check out LSU's NFL draft history during that time ( LINK):

Spring 1988, 7 players (not including Albergamo)
Spring 1989, 6 players
Spring 1990, 8 players
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Spring 1991, 3 players
Spring 1992, 2 players
Spring 1993, 0 players
Spring 1994, 2 players

From those numbers, it looks more like Archer's fault (and the fault of the unprofessional LSU Athletics Dept. in general), rather than the fault of Arnsparger.

Now CharlesLSU and tigger1 and some other knowledgeable guys around here will tell you a slightly different story. They will say that Archer actually had some very good recruiting classes that didn't pan out, in part because Curley Hallman was so bad at developing talent.

Either way, though, I don't think it can be said that Arnsparger left the program in worse shape than when he found it. From 1984 to 1986 LSU won the SEC twice (if you count 1984, which I do), and even after Arnsparger left, there was enough momentum for a 10-1-1 season in 1987 and yet another SEC title in 1988.

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That '87 team was the best of the 80's, in my opinion.

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I think that's likely true, although I don't know enough about the 1982, 1984, or 1986 teams to say for sure.

Still, our 10-1-1 team was light years away from being able to compete with true NC contenders, and that was one of Ohio State's worst teams of the last 50 years. A tie that seemed honorable in September proved to be disgraceful by the end of the season. Losing at home 10-22 to a 7-5 Bama team wasn't very impressive either. LSU had a few quality wins that year, but none of them against really good teams. It was nothing like quality of opponents LSU would face in the 90's and 00's.

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The playing field really started to level out with the advent of more televised games in college football. More television money motivated increased investment in facilities and brought exposure to programs like LSU that were really under-televised in the 1980's. The communications revolution has been very, very good to LSU athletics.

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Well, I would argue that it was sort of a whiplash effect. Back before the famous U.S. Supreme Court case in 1984, traditional television kept CFB ... well ... pretty traditional. The start of ESPN in 1979 was the catalyst for a lot of the change. All of a sudden you had SMU going bananas, Clemson winning a NC in 1981, the Florida Gators going bananas, Miami winning a NC in 1983, and BYU winning a NC in 1984. On top of all that, you had programs like Oklahoma and Florida State that were becoming just off-the-hook crazy.

The adults finally started to try to regulate things and get things back to normal in the mid-80's. The NCAA lost their court case and had their televised games temporarily replaced by the CFA around 1987 or so. Finally, with television become prevalent enough to televise regular conference matchups (rather than just the big guys), conference alliances started making more sense. And so you had all the big mergers start.

SMU got the death penalty, and then the SWC started thinking about merging with the Big 8. Then the Big East formed out of a bunch of East Coast indies. Then the SEC went all superconference, and finally, even the mighty Canes and Seminoles were enticed to join conferences.

Once all the wild independents had to settle down into a more fairly organized conference-allied system, it was a foregone conclusion that the SEC would dominate. The Big XII thought they could hang ... but they were wrong!

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SMU got the death penalty,

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LSU got a couple Football transfers from SMU.

Thought his years were some of the proudest times at LSU. He was a little too pro like with his loose rules, but a great teacher and coach. He knew talent and where to play it. Special Teams were really big to him. Coach A was the best. Will never understand why he left. He really thought Archer could do the job, but he was not ready. He was the most intense coach like Sabin. He was a class act.