Ok, so, let me get this straight.
LSU athletic officials met with Tom Herman personally today, 100 miles from College Station, less than 24 hours before Houston plays at Memphis? And, according to the story that first broke by hornsdigest.com‘s Chip Brown, it appears that Herman has agreed to be LSU’s next head coach?
Not sure that I believe all of this is legitimate.
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Now, these are just quick thoughts on what’s transpired tonight…
First off, the idea of a coach personally meeting with administrators from school a day before the final regular season game just doesn’t make sense to me. You’re telling me Herman met with LSU and then boarded a 3pm-ish flight from Houston to Memphis? (The Houston football twitter posted a video when they came off the plane sometime after 5pm).
All the news coming across twitter is basically just trying to justify the not-confirmed news that Herman is taking the LSU job.
“Hearing the Texas boosters made the job less desirable for Herman.”
Right, like the LSU boosters and administrators have really made themselves look great over the last year + in how they handled Les Miles.
This plays out the same way all agent led stories do. Herman wants to go to Texas, but they’re not moving fast enough for his liking, so his agent leaks that they’ve almost got something done with LSU, who, until just a day or so ago, were completely focused on Jimbo Fisher.
Jimbo turning down LSU was not surprising. LSU was not going to pay an insane amount of money to grab Jimbo from a comparable job. I wrote an entire story detailing why it didn’t make a lot of sense for him to move – from family to pay to schedule strength, etc.
LSU was never going to hire Ed Oregeron because of his involvement with possible NCAA troubles at Ole Miss. None of this has come out in any notice of allegations, but it was under Orgeron when Ole Miss started getting kids into school by using the ACT testing site down in Wayne County, MS. There are currently 10 (yes… TEN) former Oregeron staff members on staff again at Ole Miss under Hugh Freeze. Now, why would Hugh Freeze have 10 staff members from one of the worst eras (record wise) in Ole Miss history? Because they know where the bodies are buried. The academic fraud allegations are very very real. We’ll find out more during the testimony of former Ole Miss staff member David Saunders, who was found guilty of NCAA violations while at Louisiana-Lafayette in 2014, in the ULL vs ACT case in 2017.
Herman to LSU does make sense on several different levels. It’s an SEC school. A really big stage. And yes, the Texas boosters and administration, and all the politics surrounding it, could make it unappealing, but not for somebody that has as much experience in the state of Texas as Herman does.
Now, what I did not know is that current LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda was Herman’s college roommate, and that his current offensive coordinator, Major Applewhite, is actually from Baton Rouge (but, to be fair, he did play QB at Texas).
I’m still in the camp that believe Herman is going to Texas, and this leaked report is just a ploy to get Texas to move more quickly on their coaching search. Does UT administration really want to keep Charlie Strong after going 16-20 over their last 3 seasons? They shouldn’t be making a decision to keep a head football coach based on what the team does in a last home game against TCU. Either the coach has it or he doesn’t. And when the fans have turned on a coach, there’s no coming back from it.
For a local example (to me), take a look at Josh Pastner at Memphis – that last team he had (last year) made a run at the end of the season and came within the conference tournament championship game of making the NCAA tournament. But his fate was already sealed. Once the fans turn on a coach, they don’t show up anymore. And even if the coach does make it to the next season, all it takes is one bad year, even if they turn it around the following year, and the fans are back on them again.
Once fans make up their mind about a coach, there’s no coming back from it. Attendance at the TCU / Texas game will tell a lot about what the fans think about this coaching staff.
Back to Herman to Texas – don’t believe everything you read right now. But if it’s true and Herman’s been focusing on his next job and not the game at Memphis… I’m taking Memphis on the moneyline tomorrow.
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