re: PM threw his pitching coach and hitting coach

PM doesn't work.for LSU. PM isn't being considered to get his old job back.

PM's team didn't play LSU.

Therefore, wrong board to post this crappy post.

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clean up Smoke's mess

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Big mess

4 top 20 seasons in 5 years (3 of those top 12)

2 CWS appearances

4 seasons of 18+ SEC wins

1 down season was all it took for the powers-that-be to show Smoke the door.

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clean up Smoke's mess

Big mess 4 top 20 seasons in 5 years (3 of those top 12)

2 CWS appearances

4 seasons of 18+ SEC wins

1 down season was all it took for the powers-that-be to show Smoke the door.

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Yeah, it’s interesting how the perception of every coach’s tenure is so colored by the perception of the ones who came before and after them, rather than in a vacuum by their own merits.

But it’s understandable because that’s just how humans—sports fans in particular—do it. It’s a lot easier to compare coaches at the same program that you follow intricately year after year for decades and judge them based on that.

There was almost nothing Smoke could do to hang on to that job long-term. Skip had built the program so big that it not only helped the LSU brand, but it helped build the entire college baseball brand. More teams were competing at the top, and even Skip—had he coached another decade—wasn’t going to keeping winning NCs at that pace (5 in 10 years). He’d have won a couple more for sure—maybe even 3–but the “every other year” pace would have slowed.

But not only did Skip build the LSU brand, he had become his own brand at the end. Guys wanted to come play for LSU, but they also wanted to come play for Skip. So Smoke could leverage the LSU brand to recruit—and he did recruit some good players in his time as HC here—he couldn’t leverage playing for Skip. Obviously. And since he had never been a HC before, nobody wanted to come play for him specifically.

So it was the inevitable that while other schools were getting more talent and we were getting less, that we weren’t going to keep winning at the level we had. We won a lot of baseball games under Smoke, had a lot of success. But the definition of “success” had changed so drastically (and unrealistically) at LSU by then—going to Omaha wasn’t the standard anymore—it was winning the CWS in Omaha—that he had almost no chance of meeting it. He needed to win at least 1 in those 5 years to stick around.

And the powers that be felt that the perception of the program was slipping too far from the standard that they couldn’t afford to allow him to continue. Rightfully so imo. But his tenure would have been deemed a success at almost any other school in any other era. But he wasn’t at any other school in any other era. He was at LSU in the immediately post Skip era, so people perceive it as a “mess.”

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Pm was still on the payroll after he retired
South Carolina saved lsu some money

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Irrelevant to you posting on the Rant.

I see they moved this to MSB.

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So what? In the first couple of years Saban was at Bama, he was doing the same shite. He was telling recruits that Les was only winning with his players. Coaches have egos... ALL OF THEM.

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And let’s not forget, and is still true to this very day, a large portion of our fanbase gives more credit to Nick Saban, than Les Miles for winning the 2007 National Title…

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And we had some “diehards” defending that clown until the day he was fired.

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We didn’t know the next guy would win 2 out of 3 natties