re: WoW. Curley Hallman was really that Bad

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Archer was most definitely worse than Hallman, regardless of their records. Archer took over a top-10 program coming off an SEC championship, then ran it into the ground as recruiting fell off a cliff. Hallman took over the program in the toilet that Archer left it in, greatly improved recruiting, but unfortunately could not do anything with the talent he stocked. Still, the program was much better off (i.e. more talent on the roster) when Hallman left it than when he inherited it. The opposite is true of Archer.

And as for shitty losses, how about 44-3 to Miami, 24-21 to Vanderbilt (Vandy's only win that year), 34-8 to Florida and 42-3 to Florida State?

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I said Archer wasn't a good head coach, but he was better than Curley. You could give Curley the Patriots roster and he'd find a way to finish with a losing record in the SEC. Archer was an assistant and defensive coordinator for three years with Arnsparger and helped build what he ultimately inherited. He had a lot of pressure on him though as the youngest coach in college football at 34.

Archer at least had two good years before he started losing. LSU won their bowl game, finished ranked in the top 5 and won 10 games for the first time in 26 years in his first year as head coach (LSU had 3 losses the previous year and didn't win a bowl under Arnsparger). In his 2nd year, we had the Earthquake Game and LSU shared the SEC title (even though we beat the co-champ Auburn). So at least Archer had some bright spots. You mentioned the blowouts to Miami and FSU, but those teams were phenomenal and blew out many talented teams back then.

Hallman was a total disaster. We had losses to Colorado St., Southern Miss, our worst loss ever to Ole Miss in Mississippi, 58-3, the Interception Game (which showed ZERO coaching wisdom when all they had to do was basically run the ball and kill the clock), etc. He seemed to get some decent recruits, but he did nothing with them. It didn't realistically look like we were going to contend for the West in 1994. We had 6 blowout losses in 1993. He probably recruited better as a head coach, but that was all he did. As far as actual coaching goes, the dude was the worst. There is a reason why Archer continued to coach in college and in the NFL following his stint at LSU and why Curley has been out of football on any level for about a decade after getting fired from Muscle Shoals High School. The dude had 4 straight losing seasons there and won a total of 14 games. He was terrible.

the truth

From 1960 to 1999 LSU went (someone feel free to double check)

Wins: 274 Loss: 165 Tie: 14

Win percentage: 62.03% (I wouldn't say this is average)

LSU all time win percentage: 65%

If you get rid of the 90's, Win % is 64.42 from 1960-89.

90's win % is 45.33

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Archer wasn't a good head coach, but he was better than Curley. You could give Curley the Patriots roster and he'd find a way to finish with a losing record in the SEC.

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Archer at least had two good years before he started losing.

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Hallman was a total disaster.

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You are completely right that Archer was MUCH better than Curley at making good use of talent if he had it. But he was so terrible at recruiting that he didn't have any talent after using up what was left over from Arnsparger. Curley was excellent at bringing in good talent (take a look at the 1995 roster and you'll see what I mean), but absolutely clueless about how to win with it.

Since neither was a viable option to coach for the long term, it seems the best way to judge them is what condition they left the program in versus what condition it was when they started. By that standard, Hallman was better. Hallman was so damned close to turning it around in 1994 before that Auburn game, which I honestly believe was more Amedee's fault than his. And remember, Amedee was forced on him by powers that be. Had Hallman been allowed to keep George Haffner instead of hiring Amedee (who had also been a disaster at Florida), I doubt we throw that Auburn game away like we did and 1994 goes on to be a successful season. From there, we can only speculate as to what would have happened. Curley would never have become a great coach, that's for sure. But he certainly improved the talent level of the team, left the program in better shape than he found it, and one of the main reasons he never got it turned around was a coordinator that he was forced to take against his will.

But in the end it doesn't really matter which one was worse, and matters even less which one WE think was worse, since both were bad and should never have been hired.

Now, if you go beyond just judging how good the coaches were and consider how bad a hire each one was, I think you really have to consider Archer a worse hire even if only because of the other choices we had at the time. By the time we fired Archer, no coach wanted to be at LSU because they knew the roster was depleted of talent and rebuilding would be tough and take a long time.

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Win percentage: 62.03% (I wouldn't say this is average)

LSU all time win percentage: 65%

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In other words, it is literally below LSU's own average?

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At the time no, the 2000's have upped our average a nice bit.

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Why would we look at it through that lens?

Great post

Yep, shows you what an idiot Joe Dean was. He hired him.

The Curly Hallman coaches show was truly radio gold though. Callers calling him a jackass and a loser, then Hudson telling them to come down to his office tomorrow and they can settle it like men