re: The natives are getting restless at Ohio State and LSU

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But wouldn't match Denbrock's salary? Or there was no chance at keeping him? The defense was bad but Denbrock and Daniels were the reason LSU won 10 games.

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If Denbrock just wanted a raise, he might have gone to A&M. It certainly looks like he and his family wanted to move back to the Midwest, but who knows. But he coached at ND twice, has family nearby, and has worked with multiple people on that staff before. He has a lot of connections to the school and the area. I don’t think matching salary alone would have kept him.

I liked Denbrock more than most LSU fans did last year when he wasn’t as popular and the offense was more inconsistent. That said, he’s a career good to very good OC. But he’s never been dominant anywhere outside of this one season with a Heisman QB and 2 NFL WRs. Now, I know he had something to do with Daniels’ development, just like he did Ridder’s at Cincinnati. But Joe Sloan has gotten a lot more of the credit for that, even from Daniels himself.

If we are going to pay $2.1 mil plus for an OC, I would rather see it go to someone younger who’s on the way up and runs a more innovative offense. Denbrock’s is solid, but it’s not groundbreaking. That’s said, I don’t think we will have to pay $2 mil for Denbrock’s replacement unless an obvious home run like Grubb expresses interest.

If Sloan really was the key to Daniels’ development and he’s also the key to Underwood’s commitment and ultimate signing, keeping him on this staff is a bigger priority to me. He’s younger and is going to be getting offers to move up to an OC job, at least at the G5 level. We’ll see whether he gets the OC gig or not, but there’s something to be said for keeping continuity on one side of the ball with sweeping changes coming on the other. He certainly didn’t fall on his face in the Bowl Game, so we’ll see.