So can we put the "talent" conversation to rest

Over the course of the last few years some (not all) have often attributed LSU's success to the "talent gap" that we supposedly have over other teams. Les should be 13-1 because LSU has better top to bottom talent.
I am not a star watcher or care about Rivals rankings. However lets assume for a moment we truly use that as a barometer.
Fact is LSU doesn't have better talent, equal in most cases and arguably less in others. Florida and Bama for example.
Teams like Ole Miss now, Auburn, A&M and others have recruited as strong and in the case of this year stronger according to ESPN or a few other services.

My point. Every win in the SEC is not a given and when you play so many games against equal or better talented teams we will lose some from time to time.

I am not rehashing the past years. But going forward based on today and last year the "talent" gap doesn't exist anymore in our key rivals such as A&M, Bama and others.
LSU will be underdogs to Bama for the foreseeable future and probably to A&M as well.

So lets keep it in perspective Les has to coach his arse off to have double digit wins because all of opponents are just as good, have just as good facilities and in some cases even better.

That is a simple fact.

I'm glad you pointed that out. It's been a misconception spouted off on for years around this board.

I'm not disagreeing with the gist of what you're saying but do you realize that six of 14 SEC teams had double digit wins?

Of those, LSU had the least "double-digits" with 10. There were 24 teams with double-digit win seasons last year. I think 17 of those were 11 or more. Double-digit win seasons are great but let's keep them in perspective too.

How many of those 24 teams play in the SEC West? I didn't see Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Missouri or Tennessee on our schedule last year, like some of the soft schedules played by other SEC teams.

I guess North Texas, Idaho and Townson replaced them.

The SEC West had the biggest number of 10 win teams in any division btw. Well, tied with the SEC East. Makes even me scratch my head cause it stands to reason that a conference so tough shouldn't have so many 10 win teams. I mean 6 or 14 teams with 10+ wins?

No other conferences' divisions had more than two teams with 10+ wins.
Heck, I don't think ANY conference had more than two teams with 10+ wins much less SIX. Each division (West and East) with 3 teams having 10 wins.

Hmmmm....surely speaks to what my point was, double-digit seasons are pretty common- surprisingly, even moreso in the SEC...go figure.

4 out of the top 8 recruiting classes in the nation were for SEC West schools. Not saying the lists are perfect, but we play in clearly the toughest division of the toughest conference in college football. With our east schedule always including Florida, I really don't believe another team has it as tough as we do. Rambling, but I agree with Texas Tigers.

Common? LOL!

LSU had 0 10 win seasons between 1961-1987. Then another 9-10 seasons of not winning 10.

Les Miles has 6 in 8 years, and is the only SEC Football Coach to ever achieve 10 or more winning seasons in his first 8 years at LSU.

Count the "Common" LSU 10 win seasons:

http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/sec/louisiana_state/in_the_polls.php

Well we didn't have 90K attendance records in the 60's, 70's and 80's either. We're talking about today, not pre-cell phone days.

To compare LSUs 10 win seasons to those of the likes of Boise St. or even FSU, Clemson, and VTech is a cruel joke. Towson, N Texas, and Idaho were no worse than the non conference foes of Alabama and others that won 10 games or more. In fact, I'd love to see Alabama play Florida cross conference every year, and I'd love to see them play USCe or someone like that as another cross conference game during this stretch. Instead, the chips are falling in their favor at this time, with Tennessee (their permanent cross conference rival) being terrible the last few years, and them getting the likes of Kentucky and Missouri instead of USCe, UF, or Georgia.

And LSU played an absolutely BRUTAL schedule in 2011, in and out of conference.

I'm with those that see clearly that it doesn't matter who we play out of conference, our schedule is STILL going to be one of the toughest in the nation...every single year.

Because we didn't win 10+ games/season, Tiga. Success bred this monster.