Look, I bleed purple and gold as much as anyone here. I'm not trivializing any particular teams, nor the players who wore the uniform and gave their best and represented the school proudly back then. I am saying that when you have a program that finishes with a below .500 record in ten seasons out of twenty, as we did before Saban arrived, you are not an elite football program, and you are not a major player on the national college football scene. Bottom line, end of story, no matter how you try to sugarcoat it. It doesn't matter who played on those teams. We could not maintain any consistency as a program, and for the most part could not aspire to anything more than mediocre bowls every few years the way things were going. I will agree that Saban inherited some talent. The only problem is, talent is relative, meaning that if other schools in your conference have a good bit more talent than you, as several did at the time, then it can make things difficult. It is a testament to Saban's great coaching ability that he won an SEC Title with that bunch, because in terms of TOP TO BOTTOM (key term here) roster talent, we really had no business doing so in 2001. Saban's impact on this program will not be fully appreciated for a long time, but it eventually will... perhaps after he leaves Alabama, our fans can then begin the healing process.
He didn't walk on water but prior to Saban the Louisiana recruits that owned National Championship rings wore Tennessee Orange, Miami, Notre Dame, Michigan, and Florida State uniforms. Saban changed all that. I am very thankful that Saban was able to build a fence around Louisiana. Now the Travis Minor type athletes have LSU at the top of their list of college choices. It wasn't like that pre Saban.
Healing Process?? LSU is 22-4 since Saban left. I don't miss him. Les Miles is winning 85% of his games & pulling Top Recruiting classes yearly. Miles brought consistency to the LSU program. Here's an interesting article on what the "10 Best Teams" at LSU might be: http://louisianastate.scout.com/2/654867.html
It is a testament to how incredibly lucky Saban was while he was here, and a primary reason he's heralded as such a great coach now. I am not going to say that Saban is a bad coach or that he didn't do anything for us. That would be a lie. But Saban's greatness is overblown. The fact is that we got lucky to win the SEC in '01, and were lucky to play for the NC in '03. Saban put us into position to be lucky, but had things not unfolded so nicely for him - he would not be considered as good of a coach as he currently is/was before he left.
You exaggerate. LSU was mediocre for much of the 1990's under Archer/Hallman/Dinardo but fielded nationally competitive teams in the McClendon era and conference champions in the 80's, along with a 10-win season and a National Coach of the Year. Well, not in your first 8 posts you haven't. We can thank Mark Emmert for Nick's hire. Joe Dean would have lowballed Nick and hired yet another cheap coach if he had his way. Chancellor Emmert did not let him have his way and LSU came right out with their top offer for Nick.
I know that has to be a better winning percentage than Nick Satan had here!:lol: Well I think Nick still might since he wears purple shirts and shows up for LSU basketball games and then goes on a show with JR.:grin: I'm just waiting to see if he gives us the Bama game!:thumb:
