LSU Football: What if the LSU Tigers hired Tom Herman in 2016?

The year is 2016, and the LSU Football team heads into the season ranked fifth after rumors swirled that the team would fire Les Miles. The team opens the season by losing to Wisconsin before beating Jacksonville State and Mississippi State. The Tigers traveled to Jordan-Hare Stadium to take on the Auburn Tigers. LSU would lose the game 18-13 as the offense continued to struggle causing LSU to finally pull the plug after Miles led the team for twelve seasons.

The LSU Football team's head coaching opening was easily the best opening until the Texas Longhorns fired Charlie Strong making the conversation arguable. The search for LSU Football was officially on as the Tigers searched for a new Head Coach.

Early on, the Tigers were linked to Tom Herman who was by far the hottest name in coaching. In his first season as head coach, Herman led the Houston Cougars to a 13-1 record beating Florida State Seminoles in the Peach Bowl.

Things seemed to be official as rumors began to leak that Tom Herman agreed to become the next head coach of the LSU Tigers.

Just three days after rumors swirled that Herman accepted an offer to become LSU's next head coach the College Football world was turned upside down as Herman accepted the job to become LSU's next head coach which was followed immediatley by LSU hiring Ed Orgeron.

We all know how Orgeron turned out as he returned LSU to glory coaching what was the greatest team in the College Football Playoff era and quite possibly the greatest team ever but, what if LSU hired Tom Herman?

For starters the Longhorns would have needed a new head coach and the biggest name teams looked to poach was Jimbo Fisher. As the Longhorns would have been desperate after being spurned by Herman here they made a massive offer to Fisher and likely lure him away as he left Florida State a year later.

On the LSU side for starters, after missing out on the Head Coaching job Ed Orgeron likely looks for a job elsewhere rather than returning and likely joins Lane Kiffin down at Florida Atlantic University.

As we saw with Tom Herman at Texas, the hiring likely wouldn't work out either especially in the much tougher SEC. The Tigers likely fire Herman after the 2019 season as he probably doesn't land Joe Burrow in the transfer portal.

This leaves LSU Football once again looking for a Head Coach prior to the 2020 season. The top coaching candidates were Lane Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz, Sam Pittman, Mike Norvell, and Mel Tucker. Top candidate Dave Arranda likely isn't a candidate as he doesn't have the success that he had coaching LSU's 2019 defense. This means that the LSU Football team likely doesn't land Brian Kelly and has one of the above names leading the team.

The LSU Football team dodged a massive bullet

While in the moment it looked like LSU missed out on the hot name in coaching with Tom Herman, the Tigers ended up succeeding in a massive way. Hiring Ed Orgeron resulted in one of the greatest seasons of all time with the Tigers winning the National Championship while Joe Burrow won the Heisman. Orgeron has a rocky ending in Baton Rouge but, it set up LSU perfectly to land Brian Kelly. The Tigers have since had another Heisman winner while Kelly is stacking incredible recruiting classes.