Alt26

quote:

---

I get that some of these things can be hard to sniff out in an interview but MM was so boring, I find it hard to believe it wouldn’t be a dead give away in a interview that he would never be able to get the hidden donor dollars out.

---

You have to put things in context. At that time LSU had unexpectedly just fired its HC over NCAA allegations. An HC that was a firebrand with the administration. Hindsight is 20/20, but I can see a world where the AD wanted to go in a different direction so as to not get into a similar situation. Remember, Woodward did not hire Wade.

Plus, what did the LSU job look like to an outsider? There was an ongoing investigation and the likelihood of walking into a barren roster. That is commonplace now...and it became commonplace then too. We weren't in the room. It's possible other candidates said "no" to LSU.

My stance has always been that hiring MM wasn't a "sin". Hanging on to him for as long as LSU did once it became clear he wasn't going to win at LSU (and that was clear in year 1) was the "sin". IMO, the administration wasted at least 2 years of basketball by not making a move. The silver lining, I guess, is that without doing that, LSU likely would not have Kiffin and Wade now. The rejection of political demands to rehire Wade was the first domino to fall that ultimately led to Tate and Woodward being ousted.

McMahon had a solid resume and he was coming off a great season at Murray St. In fact, he had a better resume than Todd Golden, who Florida hired that cycle, and had just beaten Golden in the NCAA Tournament. If you looked at the 6 SEC coaches hired that cycle McMahon had the best resume (at least at the D1 level) outside of Mike White who Georgia hired because Florida didn't really want him anymore.

The problem is sometimes you have dig deeper beyond the resume to see if the guy is the right guy at the right time for your program. That is obviously very difficult to do. Yes, with the benefit of hindsight it was an awful hire. But at the time it wasn't an obvious "bad" hire. He may not have been everyone's preferred hire. But it wasn't objectively awful. ANYONE saying otherwise is doing so through prism of hindsight.

Where LSU went wrong was not accepting it was a bad hire quickly enough. That was evident in year 1. While that team was never expected to be great, there is ZERO reason it should have been that bad. MM was totally outmatched and it never got much, if any, better (despite what the handful of perpetual excuse makers still today want to portray). That LSU fans had to sit through 4 miserable years of it was because of the remaining local desire to bring Wade back. The AD and President were never going to do that. They would have rather hung on to MM for a year or two extra to avoid the political pressure to bring back Wade.

LSU should have cut-bait, at minimum, after year 3. There was no reason to extend the inevitable. All it did was bring an equally useless year 4 and a fight that, if some factions won out, would have MM still at LSU today (and no one in the PMAC)

quote:

---

Not really. Decades ago only about 6 teams had games that mattered by mid October. One, two losses you were done.

---

This.

It cuts both ways. Yeah, that 1 loss in November doesn't kill you anymore. But neither does that second loss in mid-October. If this were the BCS or 4 team CFP era, all 2 loss teams would have no real CFP hopes. That means a team might get a second loss in Sept and spend the next two months playing for a "good bowl" and thinking about "what if".

Now, we have the fans of a bunch of two and three loss teams still engaged. For example, 4 years ago 6-3 LSU vs. 7-2 Texas would have been a good matchup. But it would not have had potential playoff implications. Now, it does and more fans nationally are still invested.

IMO, 24 is too many. I would have stopped at 16

LSU fans on November 6th: "Deboer sucks. Their QB can't handle this environment. We are favored for a reason. Vegas knows! This is going to be a blowout!"

LSU fans on November 10th: "You guys are acting like Bama isn’t a championship contender. Bama is the most complete team in the league this year. It's Lane's first season. You can't expect him to win games like this right away"

quote:

---

ESPN created most of these games in the 80s and 90s for content.

---

This.

The bowls exist, and have for a long time, for TV content. The host cities get a little bit of a bump for not much cost (relatively speaking) and the TV network gets a few million viewers they otherwise would not get on that particularly day at that time. The Liberty Bowl had 3.4M viewers. That's 3x more than NBA games on network TV.

Unless the schools stop accepting invites (and it is not in their financial interest to do so) there will still be bowl games (though maybe not as many). It's not a "reward". Its an exhibition game

quote:

---

and then he went to mcneese and beat Michigan again

---

True. But to be fair, that Michigan team was doo-doo. (Last in the B10 by 4 games)

The team Wade beat in Maui ended the season in the National Championship game

quote:

---

Wade seems to not be too confident about winning this game and instead sounds like he wants this game to be more of a test for his team for later in the season.

---

He emphatically said after the Texas Southern game that if LSU didn't improve and play better they would be 2-1 after losing to Tech.

It's coach-speak.

quote:

---

EvanMiya.com projects the final score to be 81.4-76 in favor of Gonzaga. Site is very high on LSU, and a 5 point road loss to these guys would be impressive indeed

---

One thing that kind of sucks is that (I think) the NET ratings will consider this a Neutral site game because it's not being played in Gonzaga's home gym. You get more credit for playing (and winning) true Road games.

LSU will play two "neutral" site games this year in the opponent's hometown Gonzaga and Houston (at the Toyota Center)

quote:

---

It reminds me of when he beat LSU his first season at LSU nobody could believe it coming off the terrible year we had

---

I assume you mean Michigan in the Maui Invitational. That was the first hint of excitement because Wade didn't have a ton to work with that season. He had a few "ok" (at that point) holdovers from Jones' team, the remnants of Jones' signing class, a few cobbled together JUCO players...and Tremont Waters (who he got lucky to sign late after Georgetown fired its HC)

This game is a little bit different because unlike that first season, this roster has a few really big time players who could start for any team in the country. So it is not really a mindset of "I just hope we don't get blown out" as much as "let's get an early look of just how good this team could be?"

I see it more like when LSU played at No. 2 UConn in 2006. LSU had lost, closely, in most of its non-conf. games vs. power conf. programs. UConn was the last non-conf. game before SEC play. LSU pushed them to the brink that day, ultimately losing by 1. Even in the loss I remember thinking "this team still might be pretty good". That was proven right when they opened SEC play by winning 8 of their first 9 games, eventually reaching the Final Four

A win would be tremendous. But even just a showing that LSU is on a team like Gonzaga's level would be very encouraging

quote:

---

What I'm wondering is what the record would be art the end of the season with BK at the helm? 6-6? 5-7? Something tells me he would have stubbed his toe against A&M, Miss State or Auburn . . .

---

Last year LSU beat an average Clemson team, two bad SEC teams (Florida and South Carolina), lost two road games by one score to good SEC teams (Ole Miss and Vandy), then was blown out in the second half at home by a top 5 team (A&M) before BK was fired.

This year LSU has beaten an average Clemson team, three bad SEC teams (A&M, Miss. St, Auburn), lost two road games by one score to good SEC teams (Ole Miss and Kentucky), then was blown out in the second half at home by a top 5 team (Alabama).

Outside of the Auburn win, Kiffin is on pace to match, or best by one game, what BK's record likely would have been had he finished the season last year.