re: How on God's green Earth did LSU have 6 straight losing seasons

Joe Dean and Charley Cusimano

I think people are too hard on Archer for recruiting deficiencies. Louisiana high schools were graduating kids who just could not meet the Prop. 48 requirements. It took several years for them to get up to speed. Archer had to go outside Louisiana during those years, and he was not successful at bringing in the necessary talent. By the end of his tenure LSU had zero depth on the roster. I still think Archer was an okay X's and O's coach, he just wasn't a program leader.

By the time Louisiana high schools got up to speed with Prop. 48 we had Hallman as coach. Hallman never filled the roster with sufficient talent at all positions to be competitive in the SEC. He got the occasional star player, but his teams never had breadth of talent to win, and depth was a joke. When you compound the talent deficiencies with the coaching deficiencies you get Hallman type results. The absolute low point of modern LSU football history.

DiNardo was able to reduce the flight of Louisiana high school talent to out of state schools, and he began to fill the roster with players who could win in the SEC. However, he had his limitations as a coach and leader of a football program. They became evident when he lost quality assistant coaches and replaced them with lesser talented people.

Many of the problems for LSU's football program were exacerbated by Joe Dean's decisions to concentrate solely on controlling costs in the athletic department rather than seeking to increase revenues. There was little to no investment in correcting the obvious deficiencies in the football program. And it took the creation and influence of the Tiger Athletic Foundation and hiring of Mark Emmert to really get the program back into the elite levels of college football with an institutional commitment to excellence.

Poodle is spot-on, and there were some BOS members whom were more focused on lining their pockets with whom supplied LSU sporting events with their company's cola, breads, meats, building contracts, sub-contrator work contracts around campus, supplier deals to LSU, the Union, vending machines, etc..

Outside of building the football practice facility, most every LSU HC had to generate his own program's answers somewhat..thus Skip built up LSU Baseball and base to address it's need$..Dale Brown barnstorming the state with P&G balls and nets to build his fanbase..Pat Henry's T&Fers showering at dorm and changing in Bernie Moore/Field House rooms..etc..