re: Why was LSU football so bad in the '90s?

From 1958-73 LSU was 5th nationally (why would Dartmouth, Boise State and SDSU be included, weren't they 1-aa?) in winning pct. I think Arizona State was part of what is now FCS as well.

It seems like desegregation hurt every SEC team except for Bama and UGA, but again this was well before my time. Bama dominated the SEC in the 1970s much more than Saban did

LINK

Yep aggy's only history of success in the modern era came with beating on a godawful SWC and LSU's worst teams ever, not to mention cheating y'all's asses off so badly that you almost go the death penalty

Basically the same exact thing that happened to Texas in the 2010s:

Bad coaching, a stubbornness to adapt schemes, and inability to run a program with your own recruits beyond just landing them at your school over another.

It was bad in both. Texas and SMU fell off around 1984 and Arkansas in 1990. It's good to know that the pinnacle of Aggy history is beating our worst teams ever and winning a WAC tier conference (lost almost all big bowl games you played in). Y'all should vacate those years' wins as well out of respect for your "Code of Honor."

Yall could have had Bobby Bowden had you won the ‘79 game against FSU. Mind boggling to think what Bowden could have done at LSU.

Won at big, bad Death Valley for the second consecutive trip, but I know that doesn't really count since it was before 2000. Hey, i don't blame LSU for having enough, though i really enjoyed the games.

Following the death of Bo Rein, it took LSU 20 years to find a coach who could literally coach well and recruit. Stovall was an excellent identifier if talent and recruiter. He was not a strong coach. LSU honored Bo Rein’s staff’s contract and kept them (and the veer) for a year or two. Stoval then hired a young Mac Brown as the OC , and the Tigers went to the Orange Bowl. Brown leaves and Stovall’s offensive and defensive hires and coaching slump despite the accumulation of talent. Arnsbarger comes in and coaches great talent at a high level. Arnsbarger wasn’t the best recruiter , which played out when he left. LSU turned the keys over to his 33 year old DC , Mike Archer, who is an excellent coach. This showed in his early success. Archer heavily relied upon out of state recruiting, many of which didn’t on out or left school to return home. Lots of depth and talent problems by the time Curly is hired. Curly couldn’t coach a 5 year old T ball team To an undefeated season in a rec league that doesn’t keep score, but he could damn well recruit. Dinardo comes in and immediately succeeds with Curly ‘a recruits. Dinardo continued to recruit very well, but he mismanaged his OC and DC hires. By the time 1998 arrived, Dinardo had new hires in both sides, neither of who were worth a damn. In the backdrop of all of this is NOLA recruiting (or lack thereof). LSU (someone will be able to provide the details bc I can’t remember) did not retain a NOLA high school coach on staff or consider one (possibly Otis Washington ). This lead to an all out revolt by most of the NOLA high schools against LSU. NS identified the issue on day one and solved it, cutting the loss of of talent to Florida, Miami, FSU, Nebraska, Colorado, etc. if you look at the Miami, Nebraska, Alabama,Tennessee,Colorado and FSU trajectories since 2000, you will see a stark contrast compared to LSU. They thrived for many years on Louisiana talent. Once LSU started to concentrate that talent on campus , it immediately became a consistent powerhouse. The only reason we don’t have more Nattys is the lack of coaching by Les and that’s a fact. Should have won one in 05 or 06(or both). 2010—-2014 should have resulted in at least one, possibly two.

LSU was 4-7 that year. We were 25-13-3 against A&M before 1989 and have been 8-1 since 1995. Hard for an Ag to connect the dots, but from a statistical standpoint that 1989-95 stretch is definitely an outlier when yall got our worst teams ever. Congrats on beating them though, pinnacle of Aggy prowess