LSU's biggest problem is a complete lack of leadership.

Look back at 1999 - Emmert pushes through the BS and gets Saban hired. The AD didn't want him - didn't want to spend the money. And choked when Emmert agreed to the salary. Dean had no vision - he only saw dollar limitations. Without Emmert, LSU, as a university, and the football team, is not where it is today.


Compare that to today -

There is no Emmert. The BOS hires F King because they know he has no leadership qualities. He won't push them and they are free for their own individual agendas rather than someone trying to make LSU the best place it can be.

F King, as inept as he is, is surrounded by worse. Chief among them is Joe Alleva - a man who, after the Duke Lacrosse scandal, showed himself to be as spineless as he is stupid. He should have had trouble ever getting a job again, but somehow we hire him. Everyone associated with his hire should be terminated immediately.

Alleva has no leadership qualities, no vision, and is essentially only in this to get his big retirement. Because he knows no one else is stupid enough to hire him. He needed to make a change to Miles because it threatened some of the money coming in, which is the sole reason (even though he has zero to do with it) that the BOS tolerates him.

Does he go and hire someone great? Someone with potential to be great? Or does he go and hire someone cheap? Someone that, due to his LA roots, would conceivably be given enough benefit of the doubt for Joe to skate through to his own retirement date?

Coach O - comes in with a horrendous career record. He has no vision, no clarity for what he's going to do. He coaches, in many ways, with emotion, which means he makes a lot of bad decisions, such as not receiving the opening kick last night. He waffles about what kind of offense he wants - even suggesting in interviews two completely different types of QBs that he wants. Let alone the OC shuffle we've seen. And the lies that we're going to get the best.

Like Alleva, Coach O is just trying to hold on long enough to make his payday for a few more years. He could care less about LSU. He's trashed us on the recruiting trail for years. His loyalty is to himself. So he'll change the narrative coming out multiple times - young team, need talent, give him time - all after initially saying we're built to win now. All to buy himself the few years he needs to keep making his money.

You can't find a single leader in a position of authority at LSU. You can't find a single person with vision. You can't find a single person whose primary goal is to make LSU the best it can be as a University, as an athletic department, or as a football team.

Until that changes, we're at our ceiling in all the ways that count.