Report: Alleva to Tennessee UPDATE: Alleva staying at LSU

How about that Duke Lacrosse scandal? Now that was smooth.......NOT! How about hiring Bama's softball coach.....NOT! The NCAA went away because LSU's compliance dept did their job and there wasn't much to find. Alleva hasn't done anything noteworthy at LSU yet.

 

It seems like Alleva is being paid to do essentially what he did at Duke, which was just enough to not rock the money-making apple carts. What I'm trying to figure out is what makes Alleva such a valuable commodity that we had to sweeten the deal to keep him.

Is it his hires? Johnson and Caldwell are good names on paper, but Trent has been underwhelming to this point, and the amount of money he threw at Caldwell is frankly ridiculous given her resume and Van's. Not to mention how the softball coaching search went down. Those hires may eventually yield good results, but are definitely a toss-up at this point.

Facilities? Again, too early to tell, but his only major contribution appears to be TS window-cleaning. He certainly has a knack for pissing off tailgaters with the new parking fee structure.

Business sense? Now I'd say that's a legitimate question with what he's spending on women's hoops, as well as a contract extension for Trent after 2 terrible seasons before we even have an idea how the 2011-12 team stacks up. The Bama softball coach situation definitely does not help his case there. However, he evidently did enough sweet-talking and negotiating with Les to keep him from jumping ship to Michigan, at a time when Michigan was prepared to offer him more money. I suppose that could be a plus or a minus depending on the fan.

To sum up, if Tennessee really wanted Alleva that badly, I don't see very much in his LSU resume that Herb Vincent couldn't do. It's still a bit early after only 3 years to render a fair verdict on what he's done for LSU athletics, but it's a shaky start at best.

 

So what has he done? And he gets a raise? For what? Alleva may turn out to be a good AD, but nothing he has done so far points to that.

 

We got off easier because of the systems we have in place and because of the way we handled the entire process, not because Alleva is some brilliant AD.

The guy sold his own students down the river when they were facing years in prison in favor of a ghetto skank.

The guy should have never been hired in the first place. The sooner he leaves the better.

 

Exactly, the compliance dept deserves a lions share of the credit as does Miles and staff for being up front and not puling a sweater vest.

That is correct! He couldn't possibly have handled that any worse. He gave the university a huge black eye.

I agree he should never have been hired, why he was is a mystery to many. However I think the jury is still out on how his time as AD will be graded. He surely hasn't done anything positive of significance. He damn sure hasn't done anything to earn a pay raise. My best hope for him is that he doesn't completely F things up before he goes. Anything better than that would be gravy IMO.

 

His tenure at Duke is part of who he is. On the day he dies the fiasco at Duke will be his legacy. However I have asked repeatedly what has he done at LSU? I judge him now on what he has done at LSU. You can avoid the question all you want, or you can spin spin spin. Doesn't matter, the fact is that he has done nothing at LSU that points to him being a successful AD. Men's basketball, women's basketball and women's softball are still very open questions. Those are the programs that have his finger prints on them. I'm not saying he will not be a successful AD, he may go down as the greatest ever. But his biggest accomplishment so far is not completely F'ing things up. Let's see how he grades out with fans after the first season of Nazi controlled tailgaiting.