LSU Football 1989....what happened?

Mike Archer happened

Mike Archer got this grand idea to FOCUS his recruiting efforts in Texas, specifically the Houston area. Brought a lot of guys over that did not pan out.

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what happened?

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Larry Horton.

Signs were there in 1988. The meltdown in Columbus against what turned out to be Ohio State's lone losing season since '66 was telling. Blew a 33-20 lead in the final 5:00. Still that team won the SEC with some gritty wins--not taking anything away from them.

Texas A&M ran the season opening kickoff back for a td and it set the tone,at least for that game.Even though Hodson was a SR, we just didn't seem to have a lot of senior leadership. We went 2-5 in the SEC and 4-7 overall. But, only Alabama took it to us. All the other games came down to the last quarter and the Florida game came down to an extra second.

Low point may have been in Lexington when we had come off gutwrenching 16-13 losses to Florida and 10-6 loss to Auburn we got down 21-0 at halftime. Made a game of it but they finally won 27-21.

A microcosm of that season came the next week at home vs Tennessee. UT was top ten,and would finish 11-1 and 'co-champs' of the SEC. But after getting up 14-0,we were tied 14-14 with under a minute left in the half. Twice Hodson hit our TE in the hands wide open and he dropped the ball. With about :10 left,we kick a field goal to go up 17-14. Carl Pickens then ran the kickoff back for a td as time expired for Tennessee to take a 21-17 lead into halftime. We were "that" close to being up 21-14. That play sucked the life out of the team and crowd and they won 45-39 after we scored two late td's.

Spooky similarities to 1983,1989 and 1998.

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Spurrier was a finalist for the job LSU and Arnsparger hired him at Florida.

I have friends who, to this day, think it was all Arnsparger who set that up.

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I think your friends are wrong. First of all, who in Dec of 1986 knew Galen Hall would be forced to resign in the middle of the 1989 season ? Also, Arnsparger wasn't as enthusiastic about hiring Spurrier as the fans and big boosters were.

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never to be the same Harvard Williams. Harvey would return the following year, but by then, it was too late.

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I was up in Montana working in Yellowstone. I drove 89 miles to Bozeman to rent a motel room so I could watch LSU\A&M. I saw that Harvey Williams boasted about whupping up on Texas A&M(You have to remember, he grew up right around College Station). A&M took the opening kickoff for a touchdown and Williams ran like a girl. The demise of LSU football started right there.

This was the first year we had season tickets. I was 8 my first game was a&m. Lost alot of tough games that year. But they did pound Ohio u. I remember that one.

The beginning of the end of the Mike Archer era began in 1988:

at Ohio State
at Florida
vs. Miami (at home)

The Ohio State game was a 4th quarter meltdown of epic proportions. The Miami game was complete and total domination by the Hurricanes. The Bowl game in Tampa was a "no-show" when LSU sleepwalked through a 23-10 loss to Syracuse.

The collapse that followed was inevitable. The program lacked discipline. Recruiting was falling off. The 1989 season started at Texas A&M, and went downhill from there. Six straight losing seasons followed before 1995.

Mike Archer was a class individual, but was in over his head. The players, after Arnsbarger left for Florida, demanded Archer be made head coach. Spurrier wanted, but was not granted an interview. The players got their man, and the program fell hard and fast.

shite, bill arnsparger got the hell out of here when he ran out of jerry stovall's recruits .. jerry's 1983 signing class and the 1984 class that he all but had sewn up before he was fired took care of 1984-1988 ... there never was "arnsparger's players" .. arnsparger made it clear from day one that he wasn't going to recruit, just coach ..

because of the "me" attitude on the team and the players telling the coaches who would be playing instead of the coaches playing the best..and if it wasn't who the players wanted then let's just say the best effort wasn't made by those on the field. We just didn't have the coaches to take control on the field. Inmates running the asylum type of approach.

For years this was the knock on LSU and it took Saban coming in and giving it a team feel, and that team success is to come first over individual success.