re: When was the exact turning point for LSU's current run of football excellence?

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When was the exact turning point for LSU's current run of football excellence?

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Alabama's football coach

Tennessee game 2000, overtime.


That single game brought LSU back IMO.

Tenn. in 2000. The week before, LSU looked like it had reverted to Hallmanesque levels w/ the loss to UAB. To come back the next week & beat a top 10 team & 1 of the top programs of the previous decade launched LSU toward excellence.

Because progress is not linear. It never is. And, in retrospect, the 1998-99 seasons, while soul crushing at the time, were important parts of LSU’s resurgence. We learned the lesson of sticking by an ineffective assistant will result in disaster. We also got Saban out of the deal, and he walked into a situation with an absolutely loaded roster. Dinardo built the foundation of LSU’s Second Golden Era, and to write him out of the script is just wrong. He couldn’t get us over the hump, for lots reasons, but he at least got us to the hill.

1996 was the first important football game played in Tiger Stadium since 1988. That’s a long arse time. That was the turning point. It clearly was not the end point. Just the start. Without the Bring Back the Magic Game, none of the rest of it happens. None of it. I think it still happens without 2001 UT or even 2003 UGA, even though both are huge games.

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Dinardo's recruitment of Faulk "unlocked" the potential. Recruiting Faulk set up a wall around Louisiana for recruiting. Go back and look at Saban's roster from 2000-2004 and tell me how many of the big names weren't from Louisiana.

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First of all, Faulk was long gone by the time that Saban arrived. Second of all, our 2003 NC wasn't predicated upon DiNardo's recruits, it was predicated upon Saban's 2001 number one recruiting class (Spears, Hill, Clayton, etc.).

I really cannot believe that some posters hate Saban so thoroughly and blindly that they would be willing to attribute a portion of LSU's national prominence to DiNardo - a man who went 6-15 (2-13!) in his last two seasons at LSU. The man was absolutely reviled by the fan base when he departed in 1999. Only since Saban became Alabama's coach has there been a suspicious nostlagia of reverence for DiNardo's feats.

Did DiNardo have some recruiting success? Absolutely. Did he leave the program more talented than he found it? Yes (of course, given Hallman's epic incompetence, it would have been hard to do anything but improve the talent level). Is he the "turning point" for LSU's program and the reason LSU became a perennial national title contender over the last decade (which was the topic of this thread)? Hell f*cking no. Again, he went 6-15 (2-13) in his last two seasons here. You can't argue that hiring the guy who led LSU to a 2-8 record in his last year inevitably resulted in a national championship!

Let me put this very simply: even with the benefit of DiNardo's recruits, had a (realistic) candidate other than Saban been hired in 2000, LSU would not have risen to the highest echelon of college football over the last decade. We would not have two NC's. Retaining Saban was the turning point. He recuited better than any LSU coach before him. He spearheaded the effort to build state of the art facilities. He instilled confidence in the fanbase and eradicated "catastrophe syndrome." He brought nationally renowned defensive schemes and strategy to the program. He won our first two SEC titles of the divisional era. And of course he captured our first NC in forty-five years!

It's kind of crazy to say that anything else was the turning point. It wouldn't even be a question worthy of debate if Saban weren't in Tuscaloosa.

I loathe Saban because he is Bama's coach, I want to beat him annually, but you can't deny his contribution to LSU.

When you guys brought Nick Saban down from Mich State.

It's not just Saban, it was some of the players. In fact two of DiNardo's players were huge in the turning point. If we don't win the Tennessee game the week after that UAB debacle, Saban may have lost that team for good. Rohan Davey's pass (completion for a 1st down to get us out of our own endzone) to Josh Reed at the end of the Tenn. game when it was 3rd and 22 might be one of the most underrated plays in LSU history. That gave us enought room to punt and make Tenn attempt a long field goal that they missed sending the game to OT. Most everything Saban did after that is what got us to the point of excellence. Miles has managed to continue that.

Maybe the punt put them out of field goal range. Memory is a little fuzzy on what happened after the long completion to Reed.

Emmert!

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First of all, Faulk was long gone by the time that Saban arrived.

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Nothing to do with my point.

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Saban's 2001 number one recruiting class (Spears, Hill, Clayton, etc.).

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All 3 are from Louisiana.

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I really cannot believe that some posters hate Saban so thoroughly and blindly that they would be willing to attribute a portion of LSU's national prominence to DiNardo - a man who went 6-15 (2-13!) in his last two seasons at LSU. The man was absolutely reviled by the fan base when he departed in 1999.

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Dinardo/Faulk was the 1st building block in our excellence today. This has nothing to do with Dinardo's success during his tenure. Like I and many others have said, it was the wall that he built up around Louisiana for recruiting. Nick came here knowing that he could have immediate success here in Baton Rouge.

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Let me put this very simply: even with the benefit of DiNardo's recruits, had a (realistic) candidate other than Saban been hired in 2000, LSU would not have risen to the highest echelon of college football over the last decade

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I agree with this, but it all started with Dinardo. I'm not saying that LSU would not have had success without Dinardo because Nick Saban is one of the best if not the best coach in college football. But Dinardo left Nick Saban in much better hands than his record indicated, and Saban knew this.

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He recuited better than any LSU coach before him. He spearheaded the effort to build state of the art facilities. He instilled confidence in the fanbase and eradicated "catastrophe syndrome." He brought nationally renowned defensive schemes and strategy to the program. He won our first two SEC titles of the divisional era. And of course he captured our first NC in forty-five years!

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Nick helped make LSU what LSU is today, and there's no doubt about it. But in all honesty to say that Dinardo wasn't part of it all is just asinine. It all truly started with Dinardo, which to me is a turning point, and at the same time the same case can be made for how Saban starting rebuilding LSU. I love what Saban did for LSU, but to keep it simple Dinardo and Saban are both why we are so dominate today.

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Emmert!

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this is an excellent answer ..

anyone hear the rumor that emmert may be coming back to LSU ?