Favre paying retribution for LSU’s Dark Ages

Published 6:41 am Sunday, April 3, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Brett Favre, the pride of Kiln, Mississippi, was the keynote speaker at the LSU coaches clinic Friday.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He said he’d never been on the LSU campus before, certainly has no rooting interest in the Tigers.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He also seems far more into commercials these days than the finer points of coaching.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But he accepted Les Miles’ invitation anyway, and it’s always nice to have a big name for such occasions.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Why Favre?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Well, you figure he still owes the Tigers that much.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">From afar, by reputation mostly, some LSU fans still hold him responsible for the Dark Ages of LSU football.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That would be the 1990s, of course — five consecutive losing seasons, including the worst in school history, then a brief mirage of a reprieve under Gerry DiNardo before the bottom fell out and the decade ended with two more losing seasons.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Younger fans who’ve grown up basking in LSU football’s Golden Age — now armed with the kind of mind-set that wants to form coaching search committes after a season’s second loss — probably have no idea what it was like.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh, the futility, the frustration, the heartaches tempered only by an occasional outbreak of a genuine comedy of errors.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Rock Bottom is generally agreed to have come at the end of 1992’s 2-9 season, a sleety, frigid 30-6 loss to a bad Arkansas team, a day that froze everything in its path.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But there was plenty to choose from.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Tigers once took an early 3-0 lead over Steve Spurrier and Florida — and lost 56-3.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There were spectacles like the time the Tigers threatened to annoy Alabama when, trailing by three, LSU got a turnover in Tide territory. Moments later the Tigers faced third-and-56, for which there aren’t many reliable ball plays, and the Red Alert was averted.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Perhaps to appease the recruiting geeks, one February the Tigers recruited and signed the top-rated running backs from five states.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">What could go wrong?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Well, none of them amounted to much, dud-for-five.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Only LSU in the 1990s could pull that off.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Then DiNardo hired Lou Tepper to run the defense and introduce the term “drop linebacker,” if only to rub salt into wounded Tigers fans everywhere.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That’s when LSU, even with no threats from the governor, looked like it might as well drop football for good.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It took a Nick Saban and a groundbreaking contract (lots of money for Saban, with free run of the place) to turn it around.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But those ’90s were dark days indeed.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And it all started with Brett Favre. It can be traced to a guy who never once set foot in Tiger Stadium, and still hasn’t.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He played quarterback at Southern Miss, and didn’t really attract THAT much attention as the Golden Eagles’ flashy quarterback.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Atlanta Falcons drafted him, but only on a whim, and only kept him for one year before trading him to Green Bay.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You probably know the rest — if not, check out this summer’s Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But the inauspicious beginning only shows that the NFL was duped as badly as LSU was.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">A good man like then-LSU Athletic Director Joe Dean never really lived it down.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He hired Favre’s coach at Southern Miss, Curley Hallman.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It could have been any school.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU just happened to be the most prominent school looking for a coach following the 1990 season.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Tigers were in the wrong place at the wrong time.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Hallman could have had his pick of head coaching jobs while basking in the Favre afterglow.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Hallman, at plucky little Southern Miss, was coming off a year in which the Golden Eagles had beaten Florida State, Alabama and Auburn, among others.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Who knew it was mostly Favre?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not an eyebrow was raised — LSU fans actually got excited — when Hallman arrived at LSU.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">His biggest campaign promise was to turn the LSU program around by banning earrings on the varsity.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The rest of the platform was a bit sketchy.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Hallman was fun to be around, if you’re just looking for somebody to share a beer and listen to some good stories.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But, without Favre, he was a disaster as LSU’s coach, and the harder he tried, the worse it got.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Favre never really apologized for it all.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Friday he was on campus, spinning yarns for coaches in his delightfully redneck style.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He said he wants to be on hand at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field for LSU’s historic visit to open this season against Wisconsin, and he promised to be in Tiger Stadium when Southern Miss visits later in the schedule.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not sure the debt to LSU is paid in full yet. But it’s a start.</span><p>Brett Favre was the offensive coordinator at Oak Grove High School in Mississippi last fall. (Associated Press)</p><p></p>