re: Why does LSU football underachieve so much?

I wouldnt say severely underachieving. The offense stagnated under Les which set us back during this period, but the other reasons are pretty obvious.

Bama's dominance has played a big roll. No only do we have to play them every year, but we default lose the division every year by losing to bama. So, right there, we miss out on playing a conference championship game and at best are 3rd in the SEC, congrats on the citrus bowl.

Tough schedule. Aside from losing to bama every year, we also play florida every year. Florida is a tough game. LSUs non conference schedule in that time frame has been near the toughest in all of CFB. Although we usually win those games, they are still a challenging hurdle for the team to overcome and get banged up.

A lot of teams want to beat us. We may not have a clear rival, but we have plenty secondary rivals. Ole Miss, Arkansas, Florida, Auburn, etc all come ready to play. I think 3-4 teams had a bye before playing us last season.

So, yea LSU might not be a top 10 team in the country every season, but I bet a lot of those top 10 teams wouldn't want to play LSU in a meaningful bowl game.

lsu has been a top 5 program since 2000. op says "underachieve."

Hog football fan speaking about underachieve.....give it a break Skippy.

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How many times has LSU finished in the top 5 in the last decade?

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since 2000, name 5 programs that have achieved more than lsu and what your criteria are

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Just because we haven't had any top 5 teams doesnt mean we're not a top 5 program.

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LSU is still a very good program but they've lost 3 or more games 7 straight years and 4 or more in 3 of those 7.

Since the 2011 season LSU is a solid Top 10/15 program but they aren't a Top 5 program. Top 5 programs since then are Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma and the 5th spot is kind of up for grabs.

Seems we outplayed our recruiting ranks last year. Thanks for pointing out O’s progress.

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My criteria would probably be

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there's your problem right there.

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in the last decade

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that wasn't the time frame requested

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you can go back that far I guess if you want and make that claim if you please

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thanks

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there's your problem right there. 

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You don't think it's important to at least finish in the top 10 consistently to to be considered a top 5 program?

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you can go back that far I guess if you want and make that claim if you please
thanks

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The OP was clearly talking about 2009-now so I'm not sure why you're going back to 2000.

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it'd be hard to be a Top 5 program and not have been to the playoffs at all in the last half decade. I mean it's possible, but you'd basically have to be right outside it every single year.

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I would agree. I think you could absolutely make the argument that LSU was a top 5 program in the 2000s, but not so much in this decade. Hopefully we see that change a bit in 2019. It's going to interesting to see if we can continue to improve.