So,What is the difference between LSU and UL? (Not as much as you'd think). From a parent's eye

[HoustonCajun]

OK when you guys get a chance to view the video production of the first tier (new athletic facility) then I will entertain your opinions as to our curve position and D 1 initiatives. We are going to the moon! You will readily agree after the video!! Go Cajuns!

When is groundbreaking? Seems like it is supposed to be around Aug. 1. Anyone know the status?

[BeauCajun]

OK when you guys get a chance to view the video production of the first tier (new athletic facility) then I will entertain your opinions as to our curve position and D 1 initiatives. We are going to the moon! You will readily agree after the video!! Go Cajuns!

Will anything be revealed at the RCAF Appreciation Party Saturday night? Just curious if anything different will be on the agenda.

[ULvictory]

Will anything be revealed at the RCAF Appreciation Party Saturday night? Just curious if anything different will be on the agenda.

Yup! The video will be shown to the RCAF contingency at the party on Saturday! Then on the net on Ragin Cajun site on Sunday with pervasive introduction to all sites in America as well!!

[Just1More]

I'm not discounting a single thing that money can buy. I'm just saying that there is no substitute for talent on the field when it comes to D1 football. And, there is only a composite difference, slim as it is, in the majority of programs. Certainly, good coaching with equal talent beats bad coaching all day long... and money tries its best to go find the better coaches. But, the best athletes... by far... however slightly better they are... get heavily persuaded by the programs that have the money.

You can point out an exception like Texas or Notre Dame... and money not necessarily buying you everything in talent... but those are the exceptions... not the norm. Money will buy you what attracts better athletes. Everything is on the table... to be improved upon... with money... but like I think Kyle was pointing out... there are things that people believe are huge gaps between programs... and there simply are not those big gaps. There are huge money gaps... and money can only buy you the incremental difference. But, small differences win games.

What I meant by "dedication" is the quality that I think Hud and Saban have over many other coaches. They have very different personalities and styles... but they have a dedication that leaps other coaches. It isn't just knowledge and know-how. It is mental and physical energy directed at making every single person in their grasp put out 100% of their ability.

Les Miles is a completely different animal. He has kept an already built program, with massive talent and a lot of luck on his part, on the winning side. He is a house keeper administrative head coach that is highly likeable on the recruiting trail. You know he's a digit off in IQ... but as long as his assistants are the best money can buy in their roles... and the bling and hoopla keeps bringing in the talent... you can't exactly fire a coach with his record.

I know that Kyle's tie to UL is fleeting. But, I like to have him around (and many others). Just because the inner circle of fans are usually made up of dedicated alumni, doesn't mean that we can't use the help of each concentric circle of fan out there. And Kyle is a very interesting guy. Love him. Hate him. He is interesting.

[Turbine]

I'm not discounting a single thing that money can buy. I'm just saying that there is no substitute for talent on the field when it comes to D1 football. And, there is only a composite difference, slim as it is, in the majority of programs. Certainly, good coaching with equal talent beats bad coaching all day long... and money tries its best to go find the better coaches. But, the best athletes... by far... however slightly better they are... get heavily persuaded by the programs that have the money.

You can point out an exception like Texas or Notre Dame... and money not necessarily buying you everything in talent... but those are the exceptions... not the norm. Money will buy you what attracts better athletes. Everything is on the table... to be improved upon... with money... but like I think Kyle was pointing out... there are things that people believe are huge gaps between programs... and there simply are not those big gaps. There are huge money gaps... and money can only buy you the incremental difference. But, small differences win games.

What I meant by "dedication" is the quality that I think Hud and Saban have over many other coaches. They have very different personalities and styles... but they have a dedication that leaps other coaches. It isn't just knowledge and know-how. It is mental and physical energy directed at making every single person in their grasp put out 100% of their ability.

Les Miles is a completely different animal. He has kept an already built program, with massive talent and a lot of luck on his part, on the winning side. He is a house keeper administrative head coach that is highly likeable on the recruiting trail. You know he's a digit off in IQ... but as long as his assistants are the best money can buy in their roles... and the bling and hoopla keeps bringing in the talent... you can't exactly fire a coach with his record.

I know that Kyle's tie to UL is fleeting. But, I like to have him around (and many others). Just because the inner circle of fans are usually made up of dedicated alumni, doesn't mean that we can't use the help of each concentric circle of fan out there. And Kyle is a very interesting guy. Love him. Hate him. He is interesting.

You can only put 11 players on the field at any given moment.

All the SEC money combined won't change that fact.

An while the money buys talent depth, coaches rarely prepare the depth like they do the starters.

[cajunhawk]

I'm not discounting a single thing that money can buy. I'm just saying that there is no substitute for talent on the field when it comes to D1 football. And, there is only a composite difference, slim as it is, in the majority of programs. Certainly, good coaching with equal talent beats bad coaching all day long... and money tries its best to go find the better coaches. But, the best athletes... by far... however slightly better they are... get heavily persuaded by the programs that have the money.

You can point out an exception like Texas or Notre Dame... and money not necessarily buying you everything in talent... but those are the exceptions... not the norm. Money will buy you what attracts better athletes. Everything is on the table... to be improved upon... with money... but like I think Kyle was pointing out... there are things that people believe are huge gaps between programs... and there simply are not those big gaps. There are huge money gaps... and money can only buy you the incremental difference. But, small differences win games.

The composite difference, however slim you may think it is, is massive. If a program with the most money can hire the best coach, can recruit and impress the majority of the best athletes, there is no slim difference. It's a monumental difference...composite or not. If you are going to make a composite difference...and make it slim...to get there you have to remove money from the equation. That's the only way anyone from the Sun Belt and the SEC can be seen as differing slightly. If you add in things like, "our players all breathe air and drink water," there is little difference. A balance sheet tells all in black and white. LSU's is glowing...our's isn't. Someone was having fun with you on that day...cause there is a massive difference. See Division 4.

What are these things? Coaches? LSU has a guy that prolly makes more than our entire staff combined and he is only the defensive coordinator. And he has earned every penny of that. The guy is on constant watch to head to the NFL. Our guys are looked as the next big thing at BCS schools. That's not a slim difference. That guy doesn't exist at our level, and if he did exist, wouldn't be here long. That's the major difference. They can afford to keep their quality...we watch it fly out the door as fast as it came in. There is a massive gap in fans, facilities, budgets, advertising, marketing, recruiting...what else is there? The warm and fuzzies a coaching staff gives Kyle's naughty area? I don't see the slim differences, and if you are going to make a composite of all the huge differences...chances are the composite of those will be...survey says...massive composite difference. Unless...you are going for air and water thing...there...slim difference.

What I meant by "dedication" is the quality that I think Hud and Saban have over many other coaches. They have very different personalities and styles... but they have a dedication that leaps other coaches. It isn't just knowledge and know-how. It is mental and physical energy directed at making every single person in their grasp put out 100% of their ability.

I can agree to this...but let's be clear...Hud isn't on Saban's radar...not yet at least. Hud is working with what he has, which is commendable. But even dedication isn't enough some times. I am sure there are some hard working coaches out there, that have had everything that can go wrong, go wrong, and they are dedicated and unemployed. It's all about right place, right time. Saban has the world on a plate. There is little doubt that he will go down as one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. Those guys don't come around very often.

Les Miles is a completely different animal. He has kept an already built program, with massive talent and a lot of luck on his part, on the winning side. He is a house keeper administrative head coach that is highly likeable on the recruiting trail. You know he's a digit off in IQ... but as long as his assistants are the best money can buy in their roles... and the bling and hoopla keeps bringing in the talent... you can't exactly fire a coach with his record.

Les is Les...he backed into one of the most advantageous positions in history, and he managed to keep that train rolling down the track. You are dead on about the assistants...but even a man like Les had to be humbled. Remember the Co-defensive coordinators? How long did it take for him to get the notion that his offense blows? There offensive stats are pitiful. The guy can't really coach much at all. He comes off as a farcical version of Bo Schembechler (seriously go watch a Bo video and not think to yourself...____ Les is basically doing a Bo impression up there). He is like the Queen of England. All title, no actual use. But the school he "coaches" at makes it a breeze. It recruits itself basically. The assistants do everything for him. What else does he have to do but be wacky, zany, and unnecessarily intense? Nothing. He is the anti-Saban. And with that money, and those resources...it actually ____ing works at that level. That's the sad truth of D1 football...if you have the money to do what you want...you could do everything wrong and still get away with it...unless you are Texas...and you can even find a way to ____ it up.

I know that Kyle's tie to UL is fleeting. But, I like to have him around (and many others). Just because the inner circle of fans are usually made up of dedicated alumni, doesn't mean that we can't use the help of each concentric circle of fan out there. And Kyle is a very interesting guy. Love him. Hate him. He is interesting.

I cannot disagree with this...

[Turbine]

I never tire of honest perspective
Starting with Kyle's unique experience to all the opinions that followed.

I learned . . .

[BrockMeaux]

I agree with Kyle's sentiment that, when push comes to shove, our staff (and the staffs of many similar mid-majors) are in no way inferior to the coaching staffs of the "big boys." If I had a kid with the ability, I would LOVE for him/her to participate in collegiate athletics here at UL, but I'd certainly kick the tires on offers from "bigger" schools. There's always the argument of "play here vs. ride the pine there," and it's an argument I'm a big proponent of. It's something we should be pushing because we can give kids who are talents but aren't blue chip 5 star athletes an opportunity to prove it on the field. That said, the blue chips will go to the big boys 9 times out of 10 because you can get drafted in the middle rounds of the NFL based purely on 40 times and where you went to school. Every year teams like Ohio State and USC and LSU put guys into the league that barely touched the field, but the thought is "you can't teach talent, and they went to that program so there's got to be something there."

At the end of the day, most things are the same. What isn't the same, though, is money and facilities. We're making strides, but we've got a ways to go. In my mind, the best thing we can do is make sure we've got better facilities than everybody in the state not named LSU, and among the best in the south with the exception of the SEC schools. I have no doubt that we can have a stadium and football complex as nice or better than Southern Miss and Tulane and schools on that level. It's just really hard to compete with this, though, and I don't think it should be our goal; here's Bama's newly renovated locker room/facilities, with a reported price tag of $9 million.

[DaddyCajun]

So we at UL are going to have a video put up something like this, on Saturday?

[BeauCajun]

So we at UL are going to have a video put up something like this, on Saturday?

See post #32.

[CharlieK]

Wow, that was a lot of reading!

Your son sounds like a large child.....You must go broke grocery shopping!

I hope he is able to find a school that is a good fit academically, athletically, and socially.

Good Luck!

[Cajunsmike]

The technology those guys have to deal with offshore nowadays is not for "dummies". Guys who can only turn wrenches don't have jobs out there anymore.