re: Where did Dinardo go wrong?

Tepper and signing no chest players

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It’s a bit more complicated that this. The 1997 season was a huge success. Beat # 1 Florida at home and finished #10. The three losses (Auburn, Ole Miss and Notre Dame) left a bad taste in Gerry’s mouth. Auburn best us in a 2 minute drive at the end of the game to take the lead. Ole Miss was an 11 Am kickoff the week after beating Florida. Tigers were flat. ND was at home in 35degree weather , daytime, and they ran right at us. He complained that the defense “ran a new scheme” every week and he wanted a consistent scheme that worked without being changed. The reality is that we were still a year or two away in the D line and LB’s and that Carl Reese schemed up a solid defensive plan week in and out. We just didn’t have the D line and LBs to consist Lt execute it. He pushed Reese out (goes on the Texas’s and guides them to their best defensive teams in 30 years ). He hired Lou Tepper, who was the hot name bc he suddenly had Illinois playing great defense and out two LB’s in the first round. Lou, however, schemes against Bug Ten teams week in and out. LSU replayed ND at the end of the 97 season in he Indy bowl. Tepper drew yo the scheme for the game. LSU stuffed the ND run game and won big. It was fools gold. Mid way through the 98 season LSU had a losing record, giving up several 300yd passing days to unproven QBs in a row. There was a stretch in there where four QB’s in a row were “offensive player of the week” bc if the production they had against LSU. His corners lined up 7-10 yds off of the receiver every play. In a three receiver or more set, he refused to play nickle. He dropped a linebacker over the slot for coverage. Everyone exploited it. Everyone. Calls to fire Tepper started mid season and rose to a fever pitch by Late November. Gerry dug in and said Tepper is my guy, the scheme is just complicated and take 3-4 years to learn. The fallout of that statement still leaves a bad taste in Tiger fans today. Gerry kept Tepper. 1999 ended up worse than 98, culminating in a home loss to a average Univ of Houston team. They fired Gerry and Lou after that game. LSU best Ark with an Asst coaching for its ONLY SEC win of the season. They hired Saban 10 days later and the rest is history. Firing Gerry was difficult but necessary at the time. Totally different era. LSU has 6 losing seasons in a row prior to Gerry. He stabilized both recruiting and the ship. He got fans back to Tiger Stadium. Most importantly, he made money for LSU and LSU likes money. We saw the money flow reduce to a trickle by mid season of 99 and knew we could never go back to the 93/94 seasons of 25 thousand season tickets being sold and 40 thousand in the seats. Pelini won’t get O fired. Non renewed season tickets , less game day tickets sold and crowds of 75 thousand or less will get O fired. I am not saying it will happen, but if we start to see those things then the writing is in the wall. The machine needs grease to work. Just look at the impact COVID of COVID on the Athl Dept and imagine that for 2-3 years in a row. Also imagine that the impact is only at LSU while, your rivals experience success and no money problems. This is what happened in 98 and 99.

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O needs to read this, what is happening now is following this path, especially on D. Just like today, the answer to the question is bad DC hire who just killed the D. Details may be different, but Bo seems as stubborn as Lou and O is playing the Gerry role.

I guess selling our soul for last year is coming due for payment....

He was hamstrung by the admin in 1998 when Carl Reese got offered a huge salary bump to go be DC at UTexas and as others mentioned, they butted heads a bit. LSU simply went on the cheap (relatively speaking), and once Reese bolted, DiNardo had to find someone that would come on the cheap. He brought in his old buddy Tepper, who had a pedigree, but was a dinosaur by that point and definitely a better fit for the pro game with his system.

In 1998, LSU could score with the best of them, but the defense was worthless. Then Watts (OC) bolted after the season to go work ironically for Saban at MSU, and the offense went to shite when McConnell was brought in again on the cheap to replace him.

Joe Dean may have been the cheapest AD in the history of sports before Emmert came to LSU and basically forced him to hire Saban.

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He pushed Reese out

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I was always a bit hazy on that. Did he push Reese out, did Texas just make a big offer (as some have said), or a combo of both? ie, Gerry didn't exactly push Reese out, but once UT made the offer, he didn't exactly try that hard to match.

they'd been together since Gerry got to Vandy in 90 or 91, Reese's playcalling/ gameplanning tendencies should've been known to Dinardo. maybe their relationship just kinda ran its course.

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Sound familiar to anyone?

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I will give Orgeron credit for one thing - he seems willing to learn by his mistakes and make corrections. Much more so than people like DiNardo, Miles and Jim Mora. We will see.

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I will give Orgeron credit for one thing - he seems willing to learn by his mistakes and make corrections. Much more so than people like DiNardo, Miles and Jim Mora. We will see.

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When LSU is willing to pay for his mistakes to be fixed it kind of helps. LSU back then was not even willing to match salaries for Reese and Morris Watts.

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Hal Hunter coached that game; Dinardo had already been fired.

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My son's, then 4 now 25, first game in Tiger Stadium. Game also made Hunter the LSU HC with the highest career winning percentage.

In all fairness, Morris Watts was complete shite.

Whatever happened to Hal Hunter?