re: My thoughts on the Kevin Steele hire

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ole bug eyes Tom Ritter

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Ritter has cost us at least two games to Bama and no less than one to Auburn (the 7-3 game). How he is still officiating with his track record is mind boggling.

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As to KS, any coach good enough to hired 2 times by Nick, I am willing to see what he brings to the table before I break out my cliff jumping gear.

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This is naive. He was only hired as a DC once and was demoted after one year by Saban.

Is he a solid recruiter? Yes, very much so.

Is he a very good position coach? Yes.

Does that make him a legit DC? Not at all. Steele may turn out to be a good hire, but history has proven otherwise, and it's not even close.

He was worse at Clemson than his predecessor every year basically, and then the guy who took over for him built them up in 3 years to the #1 defense in the country. People want to blame the game against WVU, but even without that game they are:

61st in scoring defense
60th in total defense

People want to blame that game as some kind of outlier, but his defense stunk and given his supposed great recruiting acumen, how was lack of talent in his 3rd year and excuse?

In the end, the guy has had numerous issues everywhere he's been:

Failed as a HC miserably
Demoted as a DC under Saban after only 1 season
Fired after 3 years as a DC in Clemson after producing their first non-top 20 defense in 6 seasons, and non-top 30 defense in 8 years.

Think about that for a bit.

Now, this doesn't mean he'll be a failure at LSU at all, but much like Crowton's history, the guy looks to have a decent to good first year or two and then the wheels fall off.

I hope it happens differently, but lots of people are revising history to try and make this look like a great hire, when history shows it likely will not be even a decent one. Remember, this is a guy that passed out at games from anxiety and now he's in the pressure cooker of LSU football as DC.

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So why did Les hire Steele?

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I'm inclined to believe Les wanted to keep Raymond and wanted to bring Orgeron on board. Most DCs want the power to bring in their own people.

That likely isn't the only factor, but IMO probably had more than a little to do with it.

So if we look at Steele's situation at Clemson compared to now at LSU, what does his supporting cast look like?

Clemson
2009-2010:

Charlie Harbison – Co-Defensive Coordinator/Defensive Backs
Dan Brooks – Defensive Tackles
Chris Rumph – Defensive Ends
Kevin Steele – Defensive Coordinator/Inside Linebackers

2011:

Marion Hobby - Defensive Ends
Charlie Harbison – Co-Defensive Coordinator/Defensive Backs
Kevin Steele - Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers
Dan Brooks - Defensive Tackles

Breakdown:
-Charlie Harbison let go as safeties coach from Auburn when Muschamp was brought in. LINK
-Dan Brooks still at Clemson where he contributed to great defenses the past few years. LINK
-Chris Rumph recently hired by Florida after stints with Alabama and Texas. LINK
-Marion Hobby still at Clemson where he coached Vic Beasley and others. LINK

Solid front 7 coaches but the secondary was lacking a solid coach.

LSU
2015:

Kevin Steele - Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers LINK
Corey Raymond - Defensive backs LINK
Ed Orgeron - Defensive line LINK
Bradley Dale Peveto - Linebackers LINK

Breakdown:
-Kevin Steele hired from Alabama where he was the ILB coach. Coached Reggie Ragland, Trey Depriest, and Reuben Foster in 2014.
-Ed Orgeron possibly the best defensive line coach in the country, has recruited and coached multiple players into 1st round NFL draft picks
-Corey Raymond has been at LSU since 2012 where we've seen his DBs play very well so far.
-Bradley Dale Peveto coached at LSU under Miles as LB and ST coach until he was fired after the Malveto fiasco.

Steele's supporting staff at LSU is better because of Raymond and Orgeron. Raymond has proved himself with having shut-down pass defenses and Orgeron has proved himself with having some of the best attacking defensive lines in CFB. All Steele has to do is pull it all together. BDP should alleviate the pressure of coaching LB and I doubt Steele will be worse than Chavis.

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Did you not follow the DC hiring saga?

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I did. I wanted to hear his opinion.

Oh I was just posting it to post it. I think even if he isn't a mastermind, the other guys will pick up the slack.

I was going to bring that up too. How the hell can anyone in here honestly say Bama has way more talent than LSU? It's not talent it's coaching otherwise LSU wouldn't have comparable draft numbers to Bama if talent was a problem...

Bama might have an edge. MIGHT on talent. That does not mean the gap is significant with talent. It's the coaching where the gap is at. Saban is the best coach in the NCAA and it's not even debatable. That's not taking anything away from LSU's staff...more I'm just telling it like it is and a lot of LSU fans don't want to hear the truth. Saban's track record speaks for itself. So yes, coaching matters as much as talent matters for a team.

You also have to look after his stint in Clemson he wasn't a coach at Bama again until last year. To me it showed that Saban valued him significantly as a recruiter and didn't want him going to a rival so he needed to find a place for him. So it makes me really question how Saban thought of him as a coach. This was the guy he demoted once before so in hindsight, you could say he failed twice as a DC?

I think Miles hired Steel because that was the only way he could get Coach O and keep Raymond here. I believe both are very good coaches and could possibly be future DCs somewhere. It's amazing to me were able to get O to be a positional coach here. He's more qualified for more, IMO. I don't think Coach O or Raymond is going to be around long because someone is going to come calling soon but at least we know Steele has some good coaches to help him gameplan.

LSU's problem was not talent when it came to looking at the gaps we saw in the games in recent years. It's the fact LSU had by far the most attrition to the NFL and a lot of inexperience at positions. Every year we were breaking in tons of youth in positions while Bama somehow is able to keep guys 4 years in their system easier. So it was a combination of attrition to the NFL and coaching. Not talent or lack of recruiting. No team would be able to handle a mass exodus like we experienced to the draft. Bama had more luck with keeping guys in their system than us despite them also losing quite a few to the NFL. All it takes is a key positional guy to help an entire defense out.

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given his supposed great recruiting acumen, how was lack of talent in his 3rd year and excuse? 

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Miles's first recruiting class was in 2005, a month into the job. The 2008 season remains the worst season since he took over.

I wonder how much impact Steele had on Bama's LBs. He was director of player personnel then coached ILBs. Ragland and DePriest were pretty good last year.

Saban's opinion in 2014:

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"I've known Kevin for a long time and he will do an excellent job for us in this role," said Saban. "Kevin is very familiar with our program from an organizational standpoint as well as our defense from coaching here previously so he'll be able to jump right in and not miss a beat. He possesses outstanding organizational skills along with great people skills which make him an excellent coach, teacher and recruiter."

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