re: Why is it hard to attract elite coaches at LSU?

James, were you wearing a mask as you typed that?

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lack of in-game strategy adjustment

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yeah and people ripped miles for this but had like the record of come back victories in the 4th.

Ed orgeron is now 2-12 when trailing at halftime.

One of the main problems is that Baton Rouge sucks as a place to live in comparison to almost anywhere else outside of Starkville in the SEC. Hot, terrible traffic, nothing really to do, bad schools etc.

Money, and lots of it, will solve any coaching search issues.

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Most people realize coaching searches are always a crapshoot, no matter who you hire or how much money you spend. LSU has had a better track record than the vast majority of athletic departments in the country.

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Pretty much this. And to add: Finding a coach to take a bad program and make them decent is easy. There are a ton of candidates any given year with that type of ability. Finding a coach to take a decent program and make them good is harder, but still not terribly difficult.

Finding a coach to take a good program and make them a perennial contender, however, is really hard. The reality is that coaches with the recruiting chops, leadership skills, and knowledge needed to take that step are few and far between. Available coaches with that ability are very rare.

So your AD doesn’t just need to be able to identify those guys - the timing has to be right to actually hire them. Florida had Ron Zook between Spurrier and Meyer. And they are on their third coach in the 11 years since Meyer left - still not back to that level. USC still hasn’t recovered from Pete Carroll’s departure.

Then there are the cases where you get “the guy” and he gets busted or tied up in some kind of scandal. Gene Stallings was Alabama’s third coach in 7 years after Bear Bryant retired. Then after he brought them back to the promised land, he got implicated in an NCAA investigation, hit with sanctions/forfeited wins, and ultimately resigned. It took 10 years and 3 more coaches before they got Saban. And why did they get Saban? Because the timing was right.

It’s not as simple as saying “just go get an elite coach”… even without an incompetent athletic director who puts all of his eggs in one basket.

If anything, the fact that LSU managed to sustain championship-level success over a 17 year period with 3 different coaches is miraculous. Be glad for that, and just hope that the right guy becomes available if/when a change is made.

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and a quick trigger to fire coaches if they aren’t performing up to expectations. Yes, we can pay them handsomely, but coaches with families want stability. We probably have a poor reputation nationally for being impatient.

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When was the last time a coach at a major sport at LSU ousted in short notice after being hired? Miles was here for 11.5 years. Smoke Laval was here for 5 years. Johnny Jones was here for 5 years John Brady was around for 10 years. Even in the 1990s, Archer, Hallman, and Dinardo had at least 4 years under their belts. Nothing about LSU’s recent history suggests what you posted.

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Looks at Urban Meyer bailing on the SEC to coach in an easier conference.

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Urban’s situation was too special for your argument, and when he took the OSU job, the only SEC job that was available if memory serves correctly was the Ole Miss job. No way he’d go there considering the shape that program was in at that time.

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Why is it hard to attract elite coaches at LSU?

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It's not.

But there's a difference between being attracted and actively pursuing. If you think elite coaches are going to approach LSU, you're kidding yourself. The above-average and young coaches will, but the top guys aren't pursuing any program. They don't have to, every year they have multiple schools calling their agents. The elite coaches have to be pursued, won over, and Alleva was too arrogant to think he had to do that.

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When LSU fired Les Miles, it was shocking to me of how hard it was to attract quality candidates?

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We interviewed 2. One was set while one wanted the Texas gig. We didn’t interview anyone else.

I watched a couple of the BOS meetings (one during the HB Report and another general mtg). It screams good ole boy politics, which is the enemy of what progressive / advanced coaches need.

Most of them fellas looked like "the guy" in many Louisiana small towns...you know the guy...the who owns most of the small town, who leads the back of back the back room Thursday night poker game where the good ole boy good ole action takes deep root with the small town's notables and state's connected.

Presents too many limitations for nuevo thinking coaches.