Interim title in SEC seems commonplace

Published 7:00 pm Wednesday, November 15, 2017

This would have been a few hours after the final game of LSU’s 1999 season.

It was about as forgettable a season as possible, even for that forgettable decade, and Gerry DiNardo had been fired the previous Monday with this one home game against Arkansas remaining.

Offensive line coach Hal Hunter took over as interim head coach, an unenviable task with a team that all year had been snakebitten with the football thing when it wasn’t disinterested in it.

The Tigers, were winless in the Southeastern Conference at 0-7, had lost eight in a row overall and the final straw had come the previous Saturday with a 20-7 to Houston in which LSU looked like it wanted to be anywhere but Tiger Stadium.

But the Tigers still had that final game, against a pretty good Arkansas team that went in 7-3, 4-3 in the SEC. Of course, LSU won 35-10.

But these few hours later, a contingent of us sports writers had convened in the side bar of a restaurant trying to decide whether we wanted to eat or just quench thirst.

After about 30 minutes, who walks in but Hal Hunter, carrying the best career winning percentage (1-0) in LSU history, and accompanied by an assistant coach and maybe a grad assistant or two.

They joined our group for some idle stand-around chitchat about the game. The place was packed and amidst the squeezing past and jockeying for position, we found two or three very polite Arkansas fans had joined the conversation.

Hunter was wearing a very nondescript LSU shirt, or as nondescript as purple allows.

The jovial Arkansas fans were very complimentary of LSU’s play. It was a pleasant conversation.

Gradually, things morphed to where the media contingent wasn’t really part of the conversation anymore.

But we were right next to it. In fact I was basically back-against-back with Hunter, kind of still half listening as the very nice Arkansas fans continued to praise the Tigers.

Gradually, it hit me.

The Arkansas fans had no idea.

They didn’t know who they were talking to.

They had no idea they were talking to the head coach of the team that had just beaten them 35-10.

They never mentioned it, and Hunter never mentioned it.

They thought they were just talking to another LSU fan.

Apparently, even an LSU “fan” being humble and nice after a 35-10 win didn’t tip them off.

A few moments later, Hunter and the other coaches had a table come open and excused themselves to the restaurant with the Hogs fans still none the wiser.

The Arkansas fans, I presume, went home the next day, and until this very day they don’t know that they talked with the LSU head coach that night.

What that has to do with LSU’s latest tangle with an interim head coach this week in Tennessee, I have no idea.

I just always thought it was funny.

But the point is — I guess — that you never know what you’re going to get when a team fires a coach with meat still left on the schedule — or as Tennessee announced it Sunday with a new level of delicacy, a “coaching transition” that, gentle and soothing as it sounds, still sent Butch Jones packing. Former Michigan coach Brady Hoke will try to get the Vols to the merciful end of a nightmare season.

LSU has already played one interim-coached team this season, Ole Miss under Matt Luke, and left another in its wake when Florida’s Jim McElwain was replaced by Randy Shannon a few weeks after the Tigers beat him.

In fact, by my count and with a close ear on the rumor mill, five of the last seven teams LSU will play this year could be in the coaching market — and that doesn’t include Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, who the whole state of Alabama seemed intent on firing after blowing a 20-point lead to LSU.

Otherwise, only Nick Saban at Alabama seems pretty safe.

Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee could easily be joined by Arkansas and Texas A&M.

Tennessee just decided to get a head start so the Vols can get past the Jon Gruden fantasy and on with the search.

The early bird strategy can go either way.

It certainly worked out for LSU that long-ago day against Arkansas — that performance for Hunter came out of nowhere.

LSU has more recent experience on the other side, of course. Ed Orgeron took over for Les Miles just four games into last season.

It was a touchy one. Miles was popular with the players. The Sunday afternoon that the coup came down, they seemed devastated at the news.

The very next week, under Orgeron, they went out and beat Missouri 42-7.

I have no idea what the Florida players thought of McElwain. But when he was banished, the next week the Gators went out and belly-flopped against Missouri, losing 45-16.

Tennessee?

Who knows?

The Vols, though as winless in the SEC this year as LSU was in 1999, are not without talent. And the firing — sorry, transition — couldn’t have come as much of a shock. It had long since graduated from rumor to foregone conclusion.

The atmosphere in Neyland Stadium should also be interesting. Fans had pretty well been protesting with empty seats for a month now. Jones had worn out his welcome, and it sounds as if some of the faithful may drop by just to see what a refreshing sight the Vols’ sideline is without Jones on it.

It certainly puts some mystery in this weekend.