re: Who is the worst LSU coach (in big sports) over the last 50 years?

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I mean it is extremely uncommon for an SEC team to go into the summer with zero players on the roster.

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Mwani Wilkinson and justice Williams both were back mid April and adam miller by early may.


That’s inheriting two 4 star and 1 guy who was a borderline 5 star.



The next coach won’t get that lucky

Curly Hallman, easily. LSU was always a football school, and he brought the team to all time lows.
As to McMahon, he has suffered through some injuries that really stung the team and at least was able to win some pre-SEC games, but with Hallman, you felt like any win was a challenge...

Curley Hallman

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I mean not really? He had objective restrictions to recruiting, at a time when the rest of the conference was going all in on the sport.

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His restriction was the loss of ONE scholarship...for each of his first two seasons. Something LSU (a) worked around each year by having a guy who was technically a walk-on, but having his scholarship paid via NIL funds and (b) didn't matter anyway since McMahon has essentially redshirted a scholarship player each season.

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Wade was also able (willing) to pay guys before it was legal.

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Please don't tell me you are naive enough to believe LSU was the only program paying players before NIL? What Wade was smart enough to do was paid above "slot value" for players powers like Kentucky, UNC, Arizona, etc wanted. For example, Kentucky wanted Smart. But they also had to pay for a lot of other big name players too. In that class UK signed 5 top 40 players. That means the amount they were willing to pay Smart, who was ranked behind those guys, was less than LSU was willing to pay since Smart was a higher priority for LSU. Same for Days with UNC

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I mean it is extremely uncommon for an SEC team to go into the summer with zero players on the roster.

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And neither did LSU given it returned 3 players from the 2022 roster. But more to you point of "rarity", Texas A&M returned zero scholarship players from last year's roster this season. They are currently 17-6 (7-3). With a win tonight McMillan will have won as many SEC games (8) in 11 games as McMahon won in 31 games! Furthermore, McMillian has already won nearly as many SEC road games (3) in 1/2 a season as McMahon has won in almost FOUR years (4)

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MM is making the tournament in year 2 against the old SEC. Without injuries, he's making the tournament in the old SEC in years 2-4.

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No he isn't. His level of suck would have just decreased to fit the level of competition around him.

I envy those of you who are too young to not immediately understand that the answer is Curly Hallman

Curley is the worst COACH in terms of developing and using the talent he had available. He improved the level of recruiting over Archer, so that wasn’t the primary issue. He was completely incompetent as a program leader and X and O coach. He made multiple very bad hires and routinely did things that were completely non-sensical and against standard practice, such has constantly rotating his OL in-game. When you do shite like that and consistently lose, you’re incompetent.

McMahon is likely a better coach- still bad, just not on the level of Curley’s insanity. His biggest issue is that he has absolutely no idea how to build a team to compete at this level, even with the money to do it the last two offseasons. That’s a very different issue than Curley. In SEC basketball today, even a great coach would struggle to win with the rosters we’ve had under McMahon. They may not be completely devoid of talent, but they are just collections of players, not teams that make any real sense together.

In the end, it just depends on how you weigh these things. I lean Curley because I saw first hand how bad he managed a team that absolutely had enough talent for a winning season and a bowl game his last two years. It took effort to frick that up, but he still managed it.

That said, team building and talent acquisition are also requirements of a head coach, so I’m sure some will lean the other way.

Hallman.

It's Curly.

As bad as McMahon has been, his teams are usually fairly solid but lacking any star power. If he could add 1 premium player to the roster, the dominant guy, they win a lot more of the close losses and have a much better record.

Curly on the other hand, reduced LSU football to sub-Vandy (the bad version of Vandy) levels.

Given the commitment and the keys to the kingdom given to BK, it is hard not to think that he was the biggest flop! He came off LAZY and ARROGANT! Thought LSU would recruit itself and all he had to do was show up. His teams reflected that belief.

At least O worked his butt off the first 3 years and then COVID and internal issues plagued him the rest of the way. Woodward was planning to fire him the day he was installed as AD.