Joe Dean was the AD that hired nick. "Among Dean's final major decisions at the helm of the athletic department was along with LSU Chancellor Mark Emmert to hire Nick Saban as football coach."
Sorry to bring you the bad news Saban haters but it was Little Nicky who "made" LSU. At least in the Tigers present incarnation as one of the dominant SEC and national powers. A little history lesson for those sufferers of premature dementia. Bill Arnsparger had built LSU into a power program. I believe that if he had stayed longer he would have won a national championship in Baton Rouge. When Bill left at the end of the 1986 season LSU had the chance to hire Steve Spurrier but with the lobbying by Tommy Hodson and other players for the player popular Mike Archer new AD Joe Dean made his first blunder and hired the then 33 year old coach. After a year one 10-1-1 record and a falloff to 8-4 in 1988 the bottom fell out and two years later Dean made his second and worst blunder. He hired Curley Hallman from Southern Mississippi. He couldn't have done worse if he had hired Curley the Stooge. After that disaster Dean hired Jerry DiNardo from Vanderbilt. Not the greatest choice but Dean wasn't going to spend the kind of money it would have taken to hire a name coach. DiNardo was a good coach but not a great one. After 7-4-1, 10-2 and 9-3 records in his first three years DiNardo started making bad assistant hires and then refused to fire them and disaster struck for the 1998 and 1999 seasons. If he had made a few better moves and won a few more games he might have kept his job longer. If DiNardo had been able to stay at LSU longer then Nick Saban would have never been the LSU coach. He built the program up to what it became and Les Miles continued the success. Can you just imagine where LSU would be today if DiNardo had stayed a few more years? While Joe Dean was the AD he was already on the way out. Mark Emmert was the real power behind the Saban hire but he let Dean sit in and take some of the credit as a courtesy to the outgoing AD. Saban's first contract at LSU called for a salary of $1.3 million a year. Joe would have never paid that on his own. Without Saban Les Miles never comes to LSU. Who might be the coach and what kind of records he might have is anybody's guess. So, Saban haters, hate the man all you want but you just might want to tip your cap or drink a toast to the coach who in a real sense "made" LSU.
Joe ask Mark, "I wonder how much money, he's gonna want?" Marks reply, "We need to find out if he really is interested, we'll worry about the money later." If you look at my picture to the left, that was my bus at the UDub game, taken from the stadium. I told the driver to get close to the stadium, he said that he was given a map, to part about a half mile away. As we were getting close to the stadium, a cop stopped my bus. In a Cajun sound, I said, "We are from Louisiana, an Mark Emmert told me I could park our bus by the stadium!" That was my only lie of the day. An the party started.
Gerry D left some talent, Hal Hunter took that same team an beat a good Ark team that was headed to the SECCG, 35-10, an it wasn't that close
No sport LSU has been in and out of the national spotlight since the 1930s or before. In more modern times it was Paul Dietzel who made LSU a national name with the 1959 national championship...Billy Cannon & the platoon football of the Go team, White team & Chinese Bandits. Charley Mac never did get the local recognition but had we been able to hang on and beat Nebraska in the 1969 or 70 Bowl game he may have had a Nat'y himself (a very longshot I admit). All through the years from 1959-2003 LSU was on the national radar as a power if not of the first line then close. Saban is due all the credit for being the coach who brought LSU its first nat'y in 45 years but he stood on the shoulders of his predecessors. He left Mich State because it didn't have the cache or potential LSU did. Believe me we owe a debt to Nick but his debt to LSU is much larger.
I'm no Saban bootlicker, but this team was on nobody's radar when he showed up. LSU was rarely even on TV - you had to wait for the newspaper to learn whether Florida beat us by 30, or beat us by 40 (ex-1997).
I think part of the reason Florida ran up such big margins of victory was because Steve Spurrier hated LSU and would leave his starters in the game long after it had been settled. Why did Spurrier hate LSU? He was up for the head coaching job in 1987. I have heard that when the Old Ball Coach got to Baton Rouge for an interview he was told that the Board of Supervisors was in a meeting at the time and he was told to go to TJ Ribs on Acadian Thruway and wait for a call to come be interviewed. While he was waiting the Board went ahead and made the Mile Archer hire and nobody bothered to call Steve and tell him anything. They just left him there to cool his heels. True story: In 1993 I was in a bar on the Friday night before the LSU-Florida game. A friend asked me what I thought the score would be and without even thinking I just said off the top of my head: Florida 58-3. 58-3 ended up being the exact score. Psychic moment? You tell me. All I know is that if I had bet that I would have won a lot of money
History didn't start in 1990 guys. Yes the 90's were down years and LSU was slow to shift to what is now modern athletics. TV???? do you know how much more limited TV coverage of college football was back then? There were so few games shown that few teams except ND and a couple of others had more than 1 appearance a year. You are talking apples and oranges. Go back and learn a little of what happened before you were born. Before you ask what the past has tpo do with anything...where do you think any historic CFB program got its rep? THE PAST. LSUs isn't ND, USC or Alabama but they have always been at the top of the next rank. Why do you think we regained (note I say regained) prominence so quickly. It wasn't because of Saban's reputation...it was because of Saban's work and LSUs reputation. I agree and fully embrace that Saban is an important part of LSUs history; however LSUs position as a elite football school did NOT b begin with Saban and I believe he profited much more from his association us than he added to ours.
