How far back did the hiring of O push LSU?

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How far back did the hiring of O push LSU?

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bout tree fiddy

Not far at all. Having guys like Burrow, JJ, Chase, etc in the NFL and now having a coach like Kelly is a lethal combination

We won a natty, have a downvote.

I don't think O put us that far back.
With all the people we lost and COVID, 2020 was going to stink anyhow. Maybe we would have ended up in a halfway decent bowl, but who knows.
2021, with better coaching we should have been able to go to a decent bowl, maybe even a NY6 game if things fell right.
I'm optimistic about this season. I think we end up 8-4, 9-3. 2023 and beyond, WATCH OUT.

In the end, LSU's fatal flaw was not necessarily hiring Orgeron. He showed for 3 years the hire could work. The fatal flaw(s) were twofold:

1. Unnecessarily giving O a big contract extension when there was no legitimate threat of someone poaching him from LSU. That act gave him the basis to believe he was more important and integral to the success of 2019 than he actually was.

2. Allowing Orgeron to step out of the parameters upon which he begged for the job in 2016. "The Binder" could basically be summarized as O would: recruit, hire competent coordinators, and stay the F out of their way with respect to the on-field approach.

O mostly stay out of the way from 17-19 (at least after his meddling delivered the Troy loss). It worked. Then, in 2020, with Aranda gone he was going to implement HIS defensive approach and hire a DC with ZERO industry demand to run it. The result was the worst LSU defense since the Tepper days. O also doubled down by hiring a string of has-been and/or never were coordinators who had no market demand whatsoever rather than proven coordinators for whom LSU would happily pay top dollar. The results were disastrous.

Just like Ole Miss was only able to realize the fruits of O's recruiting success once Orgeron was out of the way in terms of the on-field coaching, so to, in the inverse, did LSU realize just how bad a coach O was, even with great talent, the more he became involved in the actual gameplay.

Last season set LSU back at least a year because it created a talent void that will probably be felt a bit this year. However, Kelly and his staff appear to be doing just fine in their efforts to re-stock the cabinet.

We won a National Championship and will be title contenders in the next 2-3 years. So I really wouldn't considered it a huge setback.

Not a ton due to the helium gained from 2019 and the transfer portal.

O was not equipped to handle re-hiring a staff & the NFL exodus after 2019. Then there was covid, and opt outs.

But there was enough left. And being able to recruit LA is forgiving

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With all the people we lost and COVID, 2020 was going to stink anyhow. Maybe we would have ended up in a halfway decent bowl, but who knows.
2021, with better coaching we should have been able to go to a decent bowl, maybe even a NY6 game if things fell right.

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I agree, the way everything worked out I'm not really sure we are especially far back.

Orgeron's 2017 class was realistically as good as anyone could've gotten in a transition year.

The mass exudus of early entries after 2019 from that 2017 class, which was loaded, would have left the Tigers in pretty rough shape for 2020 and 2021, because LSU's best players from the 2017 and 2018 would have gone off to the NFL by then no matter who the coach was - we didn't even get them as regular seniors (or even juniors in some cases), much less COVID super seniors. A better coach would have taken advantage of the transfer portal and Covid eligibility rules to fill out the roster, but it still would have been tough.

I think the positive aspects of the 2019 Championship offsets the damage he did to the program.

I also think that if he had just acknowledged that the transfer portal existed and gone after roughly 10 average to slightly above average players to fill out last year's roster he would still have his job.

I see the Orgeron regime as sort of a chess game, where Orgeron may be moving the pieces but the strategists were behind him whispering in his ear. When O won the Natty, perhaps he convinced himself he was the master chess player, and then lost his Queen, Rooks, and Castle because--as a wise man once said--"Who who thinks he stands, take heed lest he falls." (Always seems to be the case on a roller rink floor).