Question: What would LSU most likely be like under Rein?

81usaf92

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Everytime the "the Bo you don't know" (came on the other day) SEC storied documentary comes on, and every time I talk with older LSU fans the topic of "what if" comes up. Bo Rein is before my time, and so was Charlie Mac. My question is " Was LSU on an upward trajectory when Rein took over that felt like they were going to share the SEC with Auburn in the 80's?" Because people like Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson swear he was the next big thing.
 

Con

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Everytime the "the Bo you don't know" (came on the other day) SEC storied documentary comes on, and every time I talk with older LSU fans the topic of "what if" comes up. Bo Rein is before my time, and so was Charlie Mac. My question is " Was LSU on an upward trajectory when Rein took over that felt like they were going to share the SEC with Auburn in the 80's?" Because people like Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson swear he was the next big thing.
I have seen a little of this documentary and I remember the other lsu coaches but I didn't remember bo rein. It will be interesting to hear how some of the people on here remember this situation.


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81usaf92

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I never heard of Beau Rein. Was he the one who died in a plane crash? I seem to remember some LSU HC passing before the season began.
He was. Never coached a game. LSU fans and some people close to him (Holtz, Cowher, and Johnson) all keep this opinion that he would've made LSU into a powerhouse in the 80's. I'm just curious if he was the real deal, and was that once in a lifetime coach.
 

CrimsonEyeshade

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How can anyone be sure? He had an excellent pedigree, and his 27-18-1 at NC State was a solid debut.

Still, it took Nick Saban and his ability to keep the state's African American kids at home to uptap the program's true potential. To say Bo Rein would have done the same seems to me to have more to do with the mythic qualities his career took on after his death rather than any provable fact.
 

GrayTide

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Bo Rein was a heck of a player at tOSU and a very good coach during his time at NC State. He would have definitely made LSU a better team at the time and probably had them contending for the SEC in most years. Was he a once in a lifetime coach, I don't think so, but he would have probably been their best HC since Cholly Mac, with maybe the exception of CNS.
 

Tideflyer

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Agree with Gray`s assessment. I remember that LSU folks were over the moon with excitement. He did a good job ( not great, IMO ) at NC State. Obviously we`ll never know what could have been. The one I`ve always wondered about as to what would have happened if he`d stayed longer was Bill Arnsparger.
 

ALA2262

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Safe to say he would have done as well, if not better than Jerry Stovall who replaced him. Stovall went 22-21-2 in his four years.

Bo was an assistant coach at Arkansas for one year. In 19 years at Arkansas, Frank Broyles had but four 10 win seasons. The last of which was 1975 when Bo was his OC. Which led to NCSU hiring Bo as their HC in 1976.
 
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GrayTide

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Agree with Gray`s assessment. I remember that LSU folks were over the moon with excitement. He did a good job ( not great, IMO ) at NC State. Obviously we`ll never know what could have been. The one I`ve always wondered about as to what would have happened if he`d stayed longer was Bill Arnsparger.
Yeah, Arnsbarger fielded some outstanding teams at LSU then abruptly jumped to Florida as AD. I don't recall much discussion of what happened, maybe less pressure and better money, who knows.
 
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selmaborntidefan

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Everytime the "the Bo you don't know" (came on the other day) SEC storied documentary comes on, and every time I talk with older LSU fans the topic of "what if" comes up. Bo Rein is before my time, and so was Charlie Mac. My question is " Was LSU on an upward trajectory when Rein took over that felt like they were going to share the SEC with Auburn in the 80's?" Because people like Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson swear he was the next big thing.


For those who don't know the basic story - and I have a VAGUE recollection of it as it happened.

LSU ran off Charles McClendon, a capable coach whose primary sin was that he couldn't beat Coach Bryant.

Strangely enough - as Cholly Mac pointed out - he was the ONLY Bryant assistant to ever beat the Old Man TWICE. For those not old enough
to remember Mac, he was basically Mark Richt before Richt came along. He'd assemble a ton of talent in Baton Rouge and they'd get hype....
and then they'd lose.

Remember...back then they only played 11 or 12 games AT MOST, not the 14 we get nowadays......


1968 - preseason #18 after a 7-3-1 Sugar Bowl winning season, lose 3 games and fall out of poll, come back in after winning Peach Bowl, 3 losses

1970 - preseason #12 with one first-place vote....and despite losing THREE games, still end up the year at #7 (they lost the opener to ATM,
a 3-0 narrow loss to Notre Dame and a narrow five-point loss to national champion Nebraska in the Orange Bowl)

1971 - preseason #9, lose THREE games again and wind up the year at #11 (they played four good teams and lost to 3 of them...oh but they
beat Notre Dame, so.....)

1972 - preseason #11, go 9-2-1.....and end the year at #11. They play three good teams and lose to TWO of them and tie 5-5-1 Florida.

1973 - preseason #16, start 9-0 and play 3 good teams at the end.....and go 0-3 (is this NOT Mark Richt???)

1974 - preseason #9......go 5-5-1 (like I said.....Mark Richt)

Here are their records after that implosion:
1975 - 4-7
1976 - 6-4-1
1977 - 8-4 (played three teams with a record well above .500.....and went 0-3.



1978 - a truckload of preseason hype. Despite the previous four years of not being that good, LSU begins the year at #13. They play four teams with
losing records and go 4-0. Then they play a good Georgia team. Naturally, they lose. AT HOME. Press continues to tout them as a possible contender.
I know this because I have the 1978 Alabama-LSU game via the original ABC broadcast. Once again, LSU only plays THREE teams with a record
substantially above .500 (e.g. to my mind, beating a 6-5 team in 1978 is not worth talking about)......and again they go 0-3.

They end the year unranked.

Naturally, this means that 1979 will be 'the year they break through.'

1979 - they start the year unranked. They cream Colorado and Rice, two also rans that year. They play #1 USC.

And, of course, they lose. Once again, LSU plays FOUR teams that are decent (9 wins or more) and once again goes....0-4 against good teams.


They fire Cholly Mac.



I think Bo Rein would have been a decent coach who ran into totally unrealistic expectations from the Ole Boy Network that ran the program back then and the job would have chewed him up. Y'all need to remember something - the SEC of the early 1980s had more parity than at any time in the history of the SEC. Just look at the list of conference champions:

1981 - Alabama, Georgia (tie)
1982 - Georgia
1983 - Auburn
1984 - Florida won it on the field and got stripped by an SEC vote of 5-4, their first-ever SEC title
1985 - Tennessee
1986 - LSU

SIX different teams won the SEC in SIX different years back when there were only TEN teams. THAT is parity, folks. To think Bo Rein could have come into that atmosphere and been anything other than an above average coach AT BEST is really stretching it in my view. I think it 'enables' LSU folks in their misery (if I may speak so bluntly) that they can chalk up their desert wilderness years to "if Bo hadn't got killed." Make no mistake - it was a tragedy what happened to him just like it would have been for anyone who was NOT the coach at LSU.

(For those who don't know - Rein was on a recruiting trip and the plane depressurized. They scrambled ** jets from Langley (IIRC) and the pilots viewed in the window and saw nobody in the pilot's seat. The plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the Atlantic).


I'll have more to say later today.
 

FitToBeTide

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Sounds eerily like the fate of one of our former players, Robert Fraley who perished in a private aircraft crash with fellow passenger golfer Payne Stewart. Happened in '99, I believe.
 

Crimson1967

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Had he not died, it puts LSU on a different path. Do they still have a vacancy in 1999? If not, what becomes of Nick Saban?


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selmaborntidefan

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I'll address the Bo Rein situation here and show you how Rein nearly did not end up at LSU. But first


=======================


Alabama and LSU have long had several things in common, not the least being the tendency for the fans or a so-called shadow group (the REC) to determine the hiring and firing via internal politics. Goes on a lot of places including Texas.

The Athletic Director at LSU in 1979 was former Tigers coach Paul Dietzel, the guy who had coached the 1958 national championship team. Dietzel actually fired Charley McClendon BEFORE the 1979 season but held him on as coach so that he had time to go get the new leader of his pack. Dietzel hired Bo Rein, who was killed six weeks into the new job in the plane crash (and the subject of the OP).

Let's just say LSU's hiring practices tend to make Alabama's stabs into the darkness look respectable by comparison. Both have been bumbling keystone cops types more than once.

Rein's plane was never found, lost at sea. Before there was even time to being mourning - less than 48 hours to be precise - Dietzel announced Jerry Stovall, the 1962 Heisman Trophy runner-up who played at LSU as the new head coach. Oh, and that Stovall would keep Rein's staff through the 1980. Stovall, already not exactly the first choice for the job, didn't win a lot of supporters after yet another 7-4 season in 1980. To make matters worse, Stovall actually called a press conference after the season to announce the firing of three assistant coaches.

LSU plummeted to 3-7-1 in 1981 but rebounded in 1982, beating Coach Bryant for the first time since 1970 and Stovall took LSU to the Orange Bowl, where they narrowly lost to pretty much the same Nebraska offense that would wreak havoc in 1983. But a Stovall collapse to 4-7 in 1983 meant that the new athletic director - Bob Brodhead - was going to clean house.

Brodhead was hired at a time when LSU athletics were in the doldrums and about a million bucks (which used to be a lot of money) in the red. Brodhead earned enmity with the nickname Bottom Line Bob, cutting athletic programs, but he made three stellar hires: baseball coach Skip Bertman, women's basketball coach Sue Gunter (14 NCAA tourney appearances and a Final Four in 22 years).......and the highly questioned hire at the time of former Dolphins DC Bill Arnsparger.

There was another guy in the mix when Arnsparger was hired, a guy you might have heard of named Mack Brown. Mack had had a single slightly above .500 year at Appalachian State and was a former LSU quarterbacks coach. He would eventually settle at LSU's OLD arch rival, Tulane, in 1985.

Arnsparger had not coached college ball in 20 years and his singular head coaching job at the NY Giants had been an absolute disaster (7-28). But he had a solid reputation as a great defensive coordinator - in fact, he was the leader of the defense of the famous 1972 Dolphins team and his defenses had led the league or been second in the league in scoring defense most of his years as a coordinator.

Brodhead and Arnsparger knew each other from back when Brodhead worked in finance with the Dolphins. Brodhead was a bean counter but Arnsparger had told him he would take the right college job. Brodhead did some good PR, actually getting the ABC Monday Night Football crew to praise and repeatedly show Arnsparger on the sidelines during an autumn 1983 game. Bill took the job on the condition that he start after Miami's season ended, which it did with a loss to Seattle in the playoffs on New Year's Eve. Arnsparger was now in Baton Rouge.

And it turned out that Stovall was one helluva recruiter, something that was unknown about Arnsparger who - get this - was 57 years old at the time he took the job. LSU opened his first year with tie against Florida and roared out to a 5-0-1 record before somehow losing to a mediocre Notre Dame team in October. There was controversy in the SEC at the time because after the Florida game, rumors of allegations so severe that head coach Charley Pell had already resigned upon the report left everyone wondering whether or not Florida would be the SEC champion. The Gators - perhaps not too wisely in retrospect - opted to take the coming bowl ban in 1984, a year in which they were probably the best team in the country. Thus, LSU had the SEC in the bag.....until a missed field goal cost them against a moribound (4-7) Mississippi State team. However, when Pat Dye foolishly passed up a chance to win the 1984 Iron Bowl with a chip shot field goal in the waning minutes, LSU was heading to New Orleans and the Sugar Bowl against Nebraska, their first trip to the SEC's biggest bowl since the end of the 1967 season. The next year, LSU lost to Florida and tied Alabama but ran the table until the Liberty Bowl, where they lost to Baylor. And in 1986, Arnsparger won the SEC championship and again faced - and again lost to - Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl. He was doing great things as a coach.

And it was over just like that.

In the interim between the end of the season and the bowl game, Arnsparger accepted the AD position at Florida. It is basically thought that now 60 (which you have to remember was older then than now because of medical advances even since 1986), Arnsparger wanted an administrative position....oh and the LSU AD job was open because Brodhead had resigned.


Why had he resigned? Get your popcorn, this one is hilarious.

Right after the infamous tie with Alabama in 1985 (where Ray Perkins kicked the point), two stories came flying out of nowhere. The second was that LSU basketball (who would play in the 1986 Final Four) was being investigated by the NCAA for their recruiting of a 7'1" beast named Tito Horford. The NCAA was already rifling through Dale Brown's recruitment of John "Hot Rod" Williams, the basketball star who would not only go to play at Tulane, he would - and I mean this literally - destroy the Green Wave b-ball program in a point shaving scandal. Horford signed with the University of Houston, powerhouse of the early 80s (Phi Slamma Jamma was right before this) and left. The NCAA ruled Horford ineligible because of Houston recruiting violations so naturally Brown picked him up. Brown sounds like an idiot, and he sort of was a goofball, but Brodhead made him look smart. Almost.

A couple of weeks before this whole thing blew up with Horford, the team actually played an intrasquad game at Angola State Prison. Keep reading, you'll laugh. They got back to campus and sheltered from bad weather and across campus the FBI conducted sting operation on Brodhead's office at LSU. They observed Brodhead and another guy (naturally an FBI informant) go into the office where Brodhead wanted the source to install electronic devices. You know - bugging equipment, like Watergate? Wanna know what this genius was up to? He actually wanted to capture the NCAA on audio making deals with players in the ongoing investigation. The next day - Sunday, of course - the FBI showed up with a warrant and took the equipment.

Brodhead, of course, denied that he was going to audio tape the NCAA, but it sure looked fishy that this dude wanted this equipment installed right before the NCAA investigator was going to show up and use his office to conduct the interviews.

Dale Brown, goofball that he was, pulled the old thing where he never said he was in favor of it, but he really didn't mind it going on if it would get the NCAA off his back. (Given what went down in many cases, I have to say I'm more sympathetic to Brown's opinion than I would have been thirty years ago). Of course, Brown was also a loose canon who couldn't keep his mouth shut and managed to reveal openly that the bugging thing...while it wasn't his idea.....well, it sort of was when Brodhead came up with it. Brown gave him the name of a private eye (played by Gary Busey in the movie version no doubt) to pull it off.

And of course, Brodhead sort of implied that he was being directed by higher-ups at the school via political pressure of "either you get them out of here or you're outta here." (Genius Brodhead actually managed to fire the baseball coach prior to Bertman....who found out about it by reading the job offer for the LSU baseball coach in a want ad).

Anyway, Brodhead wound up before a grand jury (which in LA probably didn't mean much). But he also compiled some other ethics charges that made him unnecessary baggage so they torpedoed him with a six-figure settlement.


Thus, Arnsparger and the job he wants is right there for him. LSU says, "Nah, we have someone else in mind." But then they made a HUGE mistake: they let Arnsparger pick his successor. After all, there's no AD, right? But then one of the board members came up with a radical suggestion that almost worked - they basically decided to put out a call for a head coach. And amazingly enough, the coaches came running. Wanna know who LSU passed on?

Well, one guy they missed was former Cleveland Browns coach Sam Rutigliano. Working as an analyst at NBC at the time, Sam wanted back in the game. A second possibility was ULL coach and the offensive coordinator of Clemson's 1981 national champions...and former LSU QB....Nelson Stokely.

There was one more name in the mix, the most impressive of the guys who came to Baton Rouge. He'd gone 3-0 as a quarterback against LSU over 20 years earlier. He'd fielded some dynamic and impressive teams in the USFL. And he was just waiting for an SEC school to call for him to come be a legend. The guy's name was Steve Spurrier.

There's an amusing tale that happened in all this. A few days before Christmas in 1986, Rutigliano and Spurrier both wound up having dinner in opposite ends of a restaurant called Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Baton Rouge. Both were so certain they had the job and would be announced the next day that BOTH coaches were telling fans talking to them about what their plans were (Rutigliano, in fact, was telling his yarns to the publisher of Tiger Rag). Stokely worked the phones. But what happened the next day was a move about as insane as the twisted tale that sent Charlie Strong to Texas in 2013.

Arnsparger had chosen his replacement - 33-year old Mike Archer, the DC of the Tigers in 1985 and 1986, who had zero head coaching experience at any level. After this parade (charade?) of coaches, the LSU Athletic Council followed the recommendation of the board and submitted three names for coaching consideration:

1) Archer
2) Georgia Offensive Coordinator George Haeffner
3) Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan

(For those who don't know, Shanahan had been the OC for Florida 1980-83).

Naturally, the LSU board managed to pick probably the LEAST qualified and certainly the WORST choice of those six names. This was the Gene Chizik hire on steroids but without Cam Newton (I know, that's an anachronism).

Archer had two really good years, a top five ranking in 1987 and a good team in 1988. And then they went off the cliff. After the 1990 season, Archer was canned. It was pretty obvious he was in over his head.

Meanwhile, Arnsparger went to Florida to continue trying to straighten out a mess. When allegations surfaced under Galen Hall, the guy who got the job because of the Pell allegations, Arnsparger sent him packing.....and he hired Steve Spurrier. The rest as they say is history.

LSU hired a guy named Joe Dean as the AD. Dean would be instrumental 12 years after his hiring in getting some guy named Nick Saban to come coach football.


Back in Baton Rouge, they looked at the impressive resume compiled in one year by Southern Miss coach Curley Hallman. The guy had beaten FSU, Alabama, and Auburn in the same season - holy Jeezus!!! Too bad LSU couldn't have Curley bring his quarterback with him to Red Stick, some fella named Favre. Hallman turned out to be a sick joke and a one-player wonder as a coach.

When Hallman took over at LSU, the Tigers had never in their entire history had more than two consecutive losing seasons. Hallman single-handedly broke that record by going 0 for 4 in four years, stretching their streak to six consecutive losing seasons. If you don't know how insane a coach Hallman was, he was Les Miles level stupid but without the winning. He made coaching decisions that 8-year old girls who never watched football would not be stupid enough to make. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, go read about the 1994 Auburn-LSU game.

And that was a GOOD day with Hallman coaching.

Incidentally, wanna know the names LSU passed over to hire Curley?

Mack Brown (then at N Carolina)
John Jenkins (at Houston, he was the OC that won Andre Ware the Heisman and then coached the 90 team)
Dick Sheridan (built a power at Furman and then did very well at NC State)
George Welsh (he had taken UVA to number one in November 1990 before losing to Ga Tech and injuries)
Mike Shanahan (who by now had been hired AND fired by Al Davis)

Look at those names and tell me ANY of them are WORSE than Curley Hallman.........

So Hallman continues the decline of LSU football and seals his fate with the 1994 Auburn game. He should have been fired in the locker room after the debacle. Okay, I'll save you the research. Auburn had won 13 games in a row under Terry Bowden but in the old JP game telecast from 1130 - which tells you how far LSU had fallen ha ha - LSU was winning, 23-9, with 11 minutes left in the game. A normal coach would run the ball as Auburn needed two TDs just to TIE it. Hallman not only kept throwing the ball - his quarterback threw FIVE interceptions in the final eleven minutes, THREE of which Auburn ran back for touchdowns and a stunning 30-26 win.

And yes, of course this game was played in Jordan-Hare.



LSU conducted what they called a "thorough search" once again. And once again, their search produced an utter disaster. This time, though, circumstances contributed to the poor hire.

After Hallman was sent packing, LSU tried yet again to replace McClendon. And they had three solid candidates in their sites: first choice John Cooper (Ohio State), second choice Mack Brown of North Carolina and third choice Pat Sullivan at TCU. Cooper and Brown turned them down. Hey, I have to give them some credit for at least choosing the best names on the list. The choice was going to be former Heisman winner Sullivan but money got in the way - Texas Cash Unlimited demanded his ENTIRE buyout from LSU. Not wanting to take a chance on a still not totally proven coach, LSU - in this case wisely - said "no thanks."

Another name in the mix that interviewed for the job was Kansas State program builder Bill Snyder. Oh, and future Clemson and Tulane coach Tommy Bowden threw his hat in the ring as well. The name LSU hired was way down the list - and obviously cheaper.

These refusals led to another disaster known as Gerry DiNardo. Gerry had played on the 1973 Notre Dame team and made a rep for himself as the OC of the 1990 Colorado team that led the nation in Fifth Down conversions (and won a championship in part because of that). He went to Vandy and had - for there - a respectable record of 19-25. His 1991 team actually finished SEVENTH in the ten-team SEC, ahead of Bill Curry's Kentucky. Gerry, in fact, went 4-0 against Curry, the former Alabama coach, and this probably led LSU to think DiNardo was the next Knute Rockne. As it turned out, he WAS Gerry - as in Faust, the other Notre Dame disaster named Gerry.

After losing his opener to Texas A/M (which back then stood for Automobiles and Money), LSU did pretty good until they faced their former reject Spurrier, who beat them. A 7-4-1 year ended with a victory in the Independence Bowl over Michigan State and their first-year coach, Nick Saban. The next year, DiNardo damn near won the SEC. Almost. In fact, if Alabama had not put together a touchdown drive to steal away an Iron Bowl win in the final seconds, LSU would have won the West. Okay, so Spurrier would have killed them just like the 56-13 rout in the regular season but LSU now had consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1988. The next year an early narrow loss to Auburn was upsetting - but DiNardo reached the peak of his popularity with a shocking win over Florida.

It was all uphill from there. The very next week, LSU managed to lose by double digits to a mediocre Ole Miss team and DiNardo's record after that scintillating Florida win would be 11-17. Needless to say, he was on his way out. He was canned by Mark Emmert before his last game and like a "Price Is Right" loser walked away with a lovely parting gift (in this case $600K for the remaining four years on his contract).


LSU was now hiring a head coach for the seventh time in twenty years. Here are the names that came up in that coaching search:

Dennis Erickson - two-time national champion at Miami, he was doing a decent job at Oregon State
Butch Davis - he had not yet built Miami
Dana Dimel - then the head coach at Wyoming
Glen Mason - made a name at Kansas and was now in Minnesota
Bob Pruett - the guy who had made Marshall a household word with Randy Moss and Byron Leftwich, etc
Mark Richt - it's truly amazing they did not hire this dude given past history
Nick Saban - had just had a breakout year at Michigan St but unremarkable history save his last name


LSU's hiring of coaches was so bad that when they made Saban only the fourth head coach (at the time) to make a million a year, I laughed. I laughed even louder when UAB knocked off LSU in Saban's first month of games.

But the rest is SEC history at both LSU AND Alabama


==================================


Btw - I would point out (and I've NOT seen the show) that Bo Rein was NOT the first choice to replace Mac. In fact, the first choice of Dietzel was none other than FSU coach Bobby Bowden. Yes, I'm serious. But FSU had beaten LSU in that 1979 season and that win convinced Bowden he could build a powerhouse in Tallahassee.

Bobby Bowden - yet another link between LSU and Alabama as "the guy who could have coached both places but coached neither."

How good would Rein have been? Well, how good was he for real? I don't think we know the answer to that question because Rein had not really coached that much. Keep in mind that he was an assistant for Lou Holtz at two schools and then spent a year under Frank Broyles. Rein would have some recruiting advantages that helped him at NC State that would he could not have come right in and built on at LSU. Indeed, Rein at NC State might have been a Malzahn at Auburn type thing - offensive assistant, leaves for a year, comes back as head coach and is known by several of the previous players and builds on that. (Of course, Rein didn't come in and play for a title his first year but this is actually an argument in his FAVOR.

Furthermore, the schedule got EASIER for Rein from 1976 through 1978. Their schedule got DRAMATICALLY easier and Rein's win total increased commensurately. Of course, Rein then had his toughest schedule in 1979 and - dropped to 7-4. While it's true that one should suspect a harder schedule will affect the record, it's difficult to say how much. Plus, Rein - like all good coaches that hang around - would have presumably learned from mistakes he made at his first job.

There's sufficient reason to doubt how successful he would have been for a very good reason: just look at the politics driving LSU hires between Mac and Saban. If Rein had had Stovall's record in the same time does anyone think he keeps the job after 1983? Do he and Brodhead get into it (as Arnsparger was constantly)?

Wanna know what I think, though? I don't think he becomes an LSU legend and I'll explain why. Rein was an Ohio State boy, an Ohio native and two-sport star. If he LOSES, LSU cans him. But I think if he WINS, Ohio State fires Earle Bruce far earlier than they did - and Bo Rein goes home to Columbus. If Rein is competitive with Georgia in 1982 and 1983 (four years as coach), I think Ohio State sends Earle packing if Bo will come home.


That's my ten dollars worth - for what it's worth.
 

TideMan09

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I thought it was a mortal sin to live in the past according to The Swamp Kittens or does that just apply towards Alabama when it comes to the true NC count..LOL
 

JDCrimson

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I'll address the Bo Rein situation here and show you how Rein nearly did not end up at LSU. But first


=======================


Alabama and LSU have long had several things in common, not the least being the tendency for the fans or a so-called shadow group (the REC) to determine the hiring and firing via internal politics. Goes on a lot of places including Texas.

The Athletic Director at LSU in 1979 was former Tigers coach Paul Dietzel, the guy who had coached the 1958 national championship team. Dietzel actually fired Charley McClendon BEFORE the 1979 season but held him on as coach so that he had time to go get the new leader of his pack. Dietzel hired Bo Rein, who was killed six weeks into the new job in the plane crash (and the subject of the OP).

Let's just say LSU's hiring practices tend to make Alabama's stabs into the darkness look respectable by comparison. Both have been bumbling keystone cops types more than once.

Rein's plane was never found, lost at sea. Before there was even time to being mourning - less than 48 hours to be precise - Dietzel announced Jerry Stovall, the 1962 Heisman Trophy runner-up who played at LSU as the new head coach. Oh, and that Stovall would keep Rein's staff through the 1980. Stovall, already not exactly the first choice for the job, didn't win a lot of supporters after yet another 7-4 season in 1980. To make matters worse, Stovall actually called a press conference after the season to announce the firing of three assistant coaches.

LSU plummeted to 3-7-1 in 1981 but rebounded in 1982, beating Coach Bryant for the first time since 1970 and Stovall took LSU to the Orange Bowl, where they narrowly lost to pretty much the same Nebraska offense that would wreak havoc in 1983. But a Stovall collapse to 4-7 in 1983 meant that the new athletic director - Bob Brodhead - was going to clean house.

Brodhead was hired at a time when LSU athletics were in the doldrums and about a million bucks (which used to be a lot of money) in the red. Brodhead earned enmity with the nickname Bottom Line Bob, cutting athletic programs, but he made three stellar hires: baseball coach Skip Bertman, women's basketball coach Sue Gunter (14 NCAA tourney appearances and a Final Four in 22 years).......and the highly questioned hire at the time of former Dolphins DC Bill Arnsparger.

There was another guy in the mix when Arnsparger was hired, a guy you might have heard of named Mack Brown. Mack had had a single slightly above .500 year at Appalachian State and was a former LSU quarterbacks coach. He would eventually settle at LSU's OLD arch rival, Tulane, in 1985.

Arnsparger had not coached college ball in 20 years and his singular head coaching job at the NY Giants had been an absolute disaster (7-28). But he had a solid reputation as a great defensive coordinator - in fact, he was the leader of the defense of the famous 1972 Dolphins team and his defenses had led the league or been second in the league in scoring defense most of his years as a coordinator.

Brodhead and Arnsparger knew each other from back when Brodhead worked in finance with the Dolphins. Brodhead was a bean counter but Arnsparger had told him he would take the right college job. Brodhead did some good PR, actually getting the ABC Monday Night Football crew to praise and repeatedly show Arnsparger on the sidelines during an autumn 1983 game. Bill took the job on the condition that he start after Miami's season ended, which it did with a loss to Seattle in the playoffs on New Year's Eve. Arnsparger was now in Baton Rouge.

And it turned out that Stovall was one helluva recruiter, something that was unknown about Arnsparger who - get this - was 57 years old at the time he took the job. LSU opened his first year with tie against Florida and roared out to a 5-0-1 record before somehow losing to a mediocre Notre Dame team in October. There was controversy in the SEC at the time because after the Florida game, rumors of allegations so severe that head coach Charley Pell had already resigned upon the report left everyone wondering whether or not Florida would be the SEC champion. The Gators - perhaps not too wisely in retrospect - opted to take the coming bowl ban in 1984, a year in which they were probably the best team in the country. Thus, LSU had the SEC in the bag.....until a missed field goal cost them against a moribound (4-7) Mississippi State team. However, when Pat Dye foolishly passed up a chance to win the 1984 Iron Bowl with a chip shot field goal in the waning minutes, LSU was heading to New Orleans and the Sugar Bowl against Nebraska, their first trip to the SEC's biggest bowl since the end of the 1967 season. The next year, LSU lost to Florida and tied Alabama but ran the table until the Liberty Bowl, where they lost to Baylor. And in 1986, Arnsparger won the SEC championship and again faced - and again lost to - Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl. He was doing great things as a coach.

And it was over just like that.

In the interim between the end of the season and the bowl game, Arnsparger accepted the AD position at Florida. It is basically thought that now 60 (which you have to remember was older then than now because of medical advances even since 1986), Arnsparger wanted an administrative position....oh and the LSU AD job was open because Brodhead had resigned.


Why had he resigned? Get your popcorn, this one is hilarious.

Right after the infamous tie with Alabama in 1985 (where Ray Perkins kicked the point), two stories came flying out of nowhere. The second was that LSU basketball (who would play in the 1986 Final Four) was being investigated by the NCAA for their recruiting of a 7'1" beast named Tito Horford. The NCAA was already rifling through Dale Brown's recruitment of John "Hot Rod" Williams, the basketball star who would not only go to play at Tulane, he would - and I mean this literally - destroy the Green Wave b-ball program in a point shaving scandal. Horford signed with the University of Houston, powerhouse of the early 80s (Phi Slamma Jamma was right before this) and left. The NCAA ruled Horford ineligible because of Houston recruiting violations so naturally Brown picked him up. Brown sounds like an idiot, and he sort of was a goofball, but Brodhead made him look smart. Almost.

A couple of weeks before this whole thing blew up with Horford, the team actually played an intrasquad game at Angola State Prison. Keep reading, you'll laugh. They got back to campus and sheltered from bad weather and across campus the FBI conducted sting operation on Brodhead's office at LSU. They observed Brodhead and another guy (naturally an FBI informant) go into the office where Brodhead wanted the source to install electronic devices. You know - bugging equipment, like Watergate? Wanna know what this genius was up to? He actually wanted to capture the NCAA on audio making deals with players in the ongoing investigation. The next day - Sunday, of course - the FBI showed up with a warrant and took the equipment.

Brodhead, of course, denied that he was going to audio tape the NCAA, but it sure looked fishy that this dude wanted this equipment installed right before the NCAA investigator was going to show up and use his office to conduct the interviews.

Dale Brown, goofball that he was, pulled the old thing where he never said he was in favor of it, but he really didn't mind it going on if it would get the NCAA off his back. (Given what went down in many cases, I have to say I'm more sympathetic to Brown's opinion than I would have been thirty years ago). Of course, Brown was also a loose canon who couldn't keep his mouth shut and managed to reveal openly that the bugging thing...while it wasn't his idea.....well, it sort of was when Brodhead came up with it. Brown gave him the name of a private eye (played by Gary Busey in the movie version no doubt) to pull it off.

And of course, Brodhead sort of implied that he was being directed by higher-ups at the school via political pressure of "either you get them out of here or you're outta here." (Genius Brodhead actually managed to fire the baseball coach prior to Bertman....who found out about it by reading the job offer for the LSU baseball coach in a want ad).

Anyway, Brodhead wound up before a grand jury (which in LA probably didn't mean much). But he also compiled some other ethics charges that made him unnecessary baggage so they torpedoed him with a six-figure settlement.


Thus, Arnsparger and the job he wants is right there for him. LSU says, "Nah, we have someone else in mind." But then they made a HUGE mistake: they let Arnsparger pick his successor. After all, there's no AD, right? But then one of the board members came up with a radical suggestion that almost worked - they basically decided to put out a call for a head coach. And amazingly enough, the coaches came running. Wanna know who LSU passed on?

Well, one guy they missed was former Cleveland Browns coach Sam Rutigliano. Working as an analyst at NBC at the time, Sam wanted back in the game. A second possibility was ULL coach and the offensive coordinator of Clemson's 1981 national champions...and former LSU QB....Nelson Stokely.

There was one more name in the mix, the most impressive of the guys who came to Baton Rouge. He'd gone 3-0 as a quarterback against LSU over 20 years earlier. He'd fielded some dynamic and impressive teams in the USFL. And he was just waiting for an SEC school to call for him to come be a legend. The guy's name was Steve Spurrier.

There's an amusing tale that happened in all this. A few days before Christmas in 1986, Rutigliano and Spurrier both wound up having dinner in opposite ends of a restaurant called Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Baton Rouge. Both were so certain they had the job and would be announced the next day that BOTH coaches were telling fans talking to them about what their plans were (Rutigliano, in fact, was telling his yarns to the publisher of Tiger Rag). Stokely worked the phones. But what happened the next day was a move about as insane as the twisted tale that sent Charlie Strong to Texas in 2013.

Arnsparger had chosen his replacement - 33-year old Mike Archer, the DC of the Tigers in 1985 and 1986, who had zero head coaching experience at any level. After this parade (charade?) of coaches, the LSU Athletic Council followed the recommendation of the board and submitted three names for coaching consideration:

1) Archer
2) Georgia Offensive Coordinator George Haeffner
3) Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan

(For those who don't know, Shanahan had been the OC for Florida 1980-83).

Naturally, the LSU board managed to pick probably the LEAST qualified and certainly the WORST choice of those six names. This was the Gene Chizik hire on steroids but without Cam Newton (I know, that's an anachronism).

Archer had two really good years, a top five ranking in 1987 and a good team in 1988. And then they went off the cliff. After the 1990 season, Archer was canned. It was pretty obvious he was in over his head.

Meanwhile, Arnsparger went to Florida to continue trying to straighten out a mess. When allegations surfaced under Galen Hall, the guy who got the job because of the Pell allegations, Arnsparger sent him packing.....and he hired Steve Spurrier. The rest as they say is history.

LSU hired a guy named Joe Dean as the AD. Dean would be instrumental 12 years after his hiring in getting some guy named Nick Saban to come coach football.


Back in Baton Rouge, they looked at the impressive resume compiled in one year by Southern Miss coach Curley Hallman. The guy had beaten FSU, Alabama, and Auburn in the same season - holy Jeezus!!! Too bad LSU couldn't have Curley bring his quarterback with him to Red Stick, some fella named Favre. Hallman turned out to be a sick joke and a one-player wonder as a coach.

When Hallman took over at LSU, the Tigers had never in their entire history had more than two consecutive losing seasons. Hallman single-handedly broke that record by going 0 for 4 in four years, stretching their streak to six consecutive losing seasons. If you don't know how insane a coach Hallman was, he was Les Miles level stupid but without the winning. He made coaching decisions that 8-year old girls who never watched football would not be stupid enough to make. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, go read about the 1994 Auburn-LSU game.

And that was a GOOD day with Hallman coaching.

Incidentally, wanna know the names LSU passed over to hire Curley?

Mack Brown (then at N Carolina)
John Jenkins (at Houston, he was the OC that won Andre Ware the Heisman and then coached the 90 team)
Dick Sheridan (built a power at Furman and then did very well at NC State)
George Welsh (he had taken UVA to number one in November 1990 before losing to Ga Tech and injuries)
Mike Shanahan (who by now had been hired AND fired by Al Davis)

Look at those names and tell me ANY of them are WORSE than Curley Hallman.........

So Hallman continues the decline of LSU football and seals his fate with the 1994 Auburn game. He should have been fired in the locker room after the debacle. Okay, I'll save you the research. Auburn had won 13 games in a row under Terry Bowden but in the old JP game telecast from 1130 - which tells you how far LSU had fallen ha ha - LSU was winning, 23-9, with 11 minutes left in the game. A normal coach would run the ball as Auburn needed two TDs just to TIE it. Hallman not only kept throwing the ball - his quarterback threw FIVE interceptions in the final eleven minutes, THREE of which Auburn ran back for touchdowns and a stunning 30-26 win.

And yes, of course this game was played in Jordan-Hare.



LSU conducted what they called a "thorough search" once again. And once again, their search produced an utter disaster. This time, though, circumstances contributed to the poor hire.

After Hallman was sent packing, LSU tried yet again to replace McClendon. And they had three solid candidates in their sites: first choice John Cooper (Ohio State), second choice Mack Brown of North Carolina and third choice Pat Sullivan at TCU. Cooper and Brown turned them down. Hey, I have to give them some credit for at least choosing the best names on the list. The choice was going to be former Heisman winner Sullivan but money got in the way - Texas Cash Unlimited demanded his ENTIRE buyout from LSU. Not wanting to take a chance on a still not totally proven coach, LSU - in this case wisely - said "no thanks."

Another name in the mix that interviewed for the job was Kansas State program builder Bill Snyder. Oh, and future Clemson and Tulane coach Tommy Bowden threw his hat in the ring as well. The name LSU hired was way down the list - and obviously cheaper.

These refusals led to another disaster known as Gerry DiNardo. Gerry had played on the 1973 Notre Dame team and made a rep for himself as the OC of the 1990 Colorado team that led the nation in Fifth Down conversions (and won a championship in part because of that). He went to Vandy and had - for there - a respectable record of 19-25. His 1991 team actually finished SEVENTH in the ten-team SEC, ahead of Bill Curry's Kentucky. Gerry, in fact, went 4-0 against Curry, the former Alabama coach, and this probably led LSU to think DiNardo was the next Knute Rockne. As it turned out, he WAS Gerry - as in Faust, the other Notre Dame disaster named Gerry.

After losing his opener to Texas A/M (which back then stood for Automobiles and Money), LSU did pretty good until they faced their former reject Spurrier, who beat them. A 7-4-1 year ended with a victory in the Independence Bowl over Michigan State and their first-year coach, Nick Saban. The next year, DiNardo damn near won the SEC. Almost. In fact, if Alabama had not put together a touchdown drive to steal away an Iron Bowl win in the final seconds, LSU would have won the West. Okay, so Spurrier would have killed them just like the 56-13 rout in the regular season but LSU now had consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1988. The next year an early narrow loss to Auburn was upsetting - but DiNardo reached the peak of his popularity with a shocking win over Florida.

It was all uphill from there. The very next week, LSU managed to lose by double digits to a mediocre Ole Miss team and DiNardo's record after that scintillating Florida win would be 11-17. Needless to say, he was on his way out. He was canned by Mark Emmert before his last game and like a "Price Is Right" loser walked away with a lovely parting gift (in this case $600K for the remaining four years on his contract).


LSU was now hiring a head coach for the seventh time in twenty years. Here are the names that came up in that coaching search:

Dennis Erickson - two-time national champion at Miami, he was doing a decent job at Oregon State
Butch Davis - he had not yet built Miami
Dana Dimel - then the head coach at Wyoming
Glen Mason - made a name at Kansas and was now in Minnesota
Bob Pruett - the guy who had made Marshall a household word with Randy Moss and Byron Leftwich, etc
Mark Richt - it's truly amazing they did not hire this dude given past history
Nick Saban - had just had a breakout year at Michigan St but unremarkable history save his last name


LSU's hiring of coaches was so bad that when they made Saban only the fourth head coach (at the time) to make a million a year, I laughed. I laughed even louder when UAB knocked off LSU in Saban's first month of games.

But the rest is SEC history at both LSU AND Alabama


==================================


Btw - I would point out (and I've NOT seen the show) that Bo Rein was NOT the first choice to replace Mac. In fact, the first choice of Dietzel was none other than FSU coach Bobby Bowden. Yes, I'm serious. But FSU had beaten LSU in that 1979 season and that win convinced Bowden he could build a powerhouse in Tallahassee.

Bobby Bowden - yet another link between LSU and Alabama as "the guy who could have coached both places but coached neither."

How good would Rein have been? Well, how good was he for real? I don't think we know the answer to that question because Rein had not really coached that much. Keep in mind that he was an assistant for Lou Holtz at two schools and then spent a year under Frank Broyles. Rein would have some recruiting advantages that helped him at NC State that would he could not have come right in and built on at LSU. Indeed, Rein at NC State might have been a Malzahn at Auburn type thing - offensive assistant, leaves for a year, comes back as head coach and is known by several of the previous players and builds on that. (Of course, Rein didn't come in and play for a title his first year but this is actually an argument in his FAVOR.

Furthermore, the schedule got EASIER for Rein from 1976 through 1978. Their schedule got DRAMATICALLY easier and Rein's win total increased commensurately. Of course, Rein then had his toughest schedule in 1979 and - dropped to 7-4. While it's true that one should suspect a harder schedule will affect the record, it's difficult to say how much. Plus, Rein - like all good coaches that hang around - would have presumably learned from mistakes he made at his first job.

There's sufficient reason to doubt how successful he would have been for a very good reason: just look at the politics driving LSU hires between Mac and Saban. If Rein had had Stovall's record in the same time does anyone think he keeps the job after 1983? Do he and Brodhead get into it (as Arnsparger was constantly)?

Wanna know what I think, though? I don't think he becomes an LSU legend and I'll explain why. Rein was an Ohio State boy, an Ohio native and two-sport star. If he LOSES, LSU cans him. But I think if he WINS, Ohio State fires Earle Bruce far earlier than they did - and Bo Rein goes home to Columbus. If Rein is competitive with Georgia in 1982 and 1983 (four years as coach), I think Ohio State sends Earle packing if Bo will come home.


That's my ten dollars worth - for what it's worth.
Whether by research or memory I am always thoroughly impressed with your recollections of history. I can't really grasp how you retain all this info.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk
 

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