No I think they absolutely wanted to fire him. I think the dumbass AD made phone calls to his top gets (a la Chip Kelly) and was told no and they decided to keep Lesticles.
And that may be true. But, what I kept waiting to see was if we are really at a point where a University is willing to pony up $15 million dollars to get rid of a coach with his credentials. I understand the "win now" mentality. It's become huge business and all about the mighty dollah. I get it. But there still has to be some semblance of sanity involved in the process. There's been a lot said about what the man has done at LSU, but look at the numbers:
111-32 overall at LSU
61-27 in SEC play.
Better winning percentage than Lord Saybinz at LSU
One National Championship. (Same as Lord Saybinz)
6-4 in bowl games
If LSU wins their bowl game, that will be eight 10 or more win seasons out of 11.
They were 8-5 last year. If he wins the bowl game, they'll be 10-3. Improvement? And they considered paying $15 million to send this guy packing? There's no way to sugarcoat how insanely stupid that is. Is everything perfect in the program? Hell no. They need to take some of that cash and sign a great QB, something they simply haven't had in a while, unless you count Mertzenbracker. Then you can open up your offense somewhat and bring it into the 20th century.
It's very much like being married for 20 years and suddenly, you're popping the cute little blonde from accounting on the copier in the break room after hours. You think it's all worth it to give up everything you've built for 20 years because now, things are going to be perfect. Chip Kelly or Tom Herman or Joey Freshwater or whoever, is going to put us in the playoffs every single year and do sooooo much better than a .780 winning percentage over the next decade. They'd better, because we don't have any cash left to make another change.
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