re: LSU fans, do you miss Chavis?

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A decade and a half, which last I checked is a pretty long time.

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That is nothing compared to the history of the sport.

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but it's hardly winning the lottery to hire a good coach,

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Tell Michigan that. Tell Texas that. Tell USCw that. Tell Florida that. Tell Notre Dame that. All of these programs have hired bad coaches in a decade and a half despite all being on Ohio St's level.

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The thing at LSU is the talent is mostly just sitting here waiting for you to handle it.

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Let me replace LSU in that statement so you can see how wrong you are:

"The thing at Texas is the talent is mostly just sitting here waiting for you to handle it."

"The thing at USC is the talent is mostly just sitting here waiting for you to handle it."

PLENTY of programs have great fans, great resources, great recruiting bases. The entire sport is a null sum game, a bunch of programs that a pretty similar except for coaching. LSU IS NOT SPECIAL!! Y'all don't have any single advantage that every other program lacks that gives you a leg up on hiring coaches. Y'all roll the dice just like anyone.

Y'all have had two great rolls in a row. I hope yall have a third, a strong LSU is actually good for A&M. It just isn't likely.

I would certainly take Chavis over Steele, but "miss him" implies some emotional attachment, so no on that.

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Right now we will have Steele because he's doing what Chavis couldn't and that's recruit. That's by far what we need right now. Unless we can get a guy who can recruit and coach at a high level we need to ride Steele out and give him time to rebuild the LB corps form the mess Chavis left. Steele from the beginning was a "oh shite we need someone so if we gotta get someone let's get a recruiter" hire.

Steele has secured 2 Top 100 overall LBs his first year here. Chavis took 6 years to do that, and 1 of the 2 ended up busting and transferring out after 1 season. the other he STARTED at DE instead of LB.

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The reason I asked is because I think you are being a little too critical. I can't dispute any of what you said about your LB recruits because I don't know enough about LSUs past recruiting. Anyway can't blame LSU fans for higher expectations.

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Neither of those guys are guaranteed any money post 2016.

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So are you telling me Joe EXPECTS to fire Les after this season? Because otherwise running off good coaches just for the possibility to do so is pretty dumb.

Heck, if Joe so obviously lacks confidence in Les why didn't he just fire him last offseason? That whole situation makes no sense, you never WANT a lame duck coach.

I'll give you a serious answer. I don't know how much better Chavis would be, probably a moderate amount of improvement. I'm on the fence whether this was a good change or not. Chavis was not an SEC caliber recruiter at LSU. Maybe he will be with TAMU, but he wasn't here. We traded a better scheme for better recruiting and we basically hedged our long term recruiting success against immediate results. We'll see if that was the right move. If we had gotten a bigger name than Steele, I would've said the answer to this was we improved for sure but that is not the case. I will say, some of the same problems that plagued us on defense last year are still prevalent. We are still susceptible to big plays and our special teams and offense does put our defense in bad spots at times, but it feels like the defense has never been there to bail them out in the first place. Arkansas was a reaming that, if repeated, should result in people getting fired though. But that same thing happened with Chavis against auburn and miss at last year as well.

TL,DR: Chavis is a better schemer so we have a drop off a bit this year but it could even out if recruiting does pickup. Many of the same issues as last year though.

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Georgia isn't too happy these days either.

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They have given Mark way more rope than Les has gotten.

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I live here and none of them want Mack back

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They would love a nine win season back though. And you are wrong, I live in Austin too and many want him back as an AD.

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it's like that at pretty much every top school

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I will happily tell any Alabama fan that the possibility of following Nick Saban with a national title winning coach is almost just as unlikely. They seem to know that though, they have a better grasp of college football history.

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just because Texas A&M lives in an almost permanent down cycle, that doesn't mean LSU fans have to be content with mediocrity.

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I never said anything about A&M's expectations. Nice deflection though.

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50 years ago doesnt matter

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Unless we are talking about Ohio St AMIRITE?

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I wouldnt be using programs who generally hire good coaches as an example.

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I would, because my whole point is EVERY program hires a bad coach every now and then.

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Except not the way Mack left it at all. We put way more talent in the league than they have recently, and will continue to do so.

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Texas as a state has way more talent than Louisiana as a state does. In the future that is all you are guaranteed, there is no law that says Louisiana boys have to play for LSU.

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A team put on crippling sanctions and accidentally hired a drunk for their coach.

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What was Michigan's excuse? Notre Dame's? UF after Meyer?

If you want to pretend hiring bad coaches is a rarity at top programs I don't know what to tell you.

No...he is not problem. We needed new blood and got it.

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Then tell me Drac, what is this amazing advantage that LSU has that no other program has?

More money than anyone? Nope.

More loyal fans than anyone? Nope.

Better facilities than anyone? Nope.

Better talent than anyone can get? Nope.

So what makes LSU so special that makes you so cocky about its future?

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LSU may not be #1 in any of those but it's top 5 or 10 in all of them, which is pretty special