Should LSU consider promoting Joe Sloan to offensive coordinator?

When the Mike Denbrock to Notre Dame news broke, it was a bit of a shocker. Coming off one of the greatest offensive seasons in college football history, LSU offered Denbrock an extension, which was agreed upon by both sides. Or so we thought.

A few weeks later, rumors started swirling that Denbrock was a legitimate candidate for the open offensive coordinator job at Notre Dame, a school he'd coached at twice before. Then, just one day later, it was announced that he was officially leaving LSU for the Notre Dame job.

Shortly after that, it was announced that QB Coach, Joe Sloan, and WR Coach, Cortez Hankton, would fill in as co-offensive coordinators for the ReliaQuest Bowl. In just a few days time, the Tigers went from securing one of the top offensive coordinators in the nation for multiple years to filling the position with a couple of position coaches.

Joe Sloan and Cortez Hankton proved to be more than capable of leading this offense. Facing a Wisconsin defense that hadn't allowed more than 31 points all year, the Tigers trotted out on the field and dropped 35 points on the Badgers en route to a ReliaQuest Bowl victory.

Now, you may be asking yourself why are we talking about promoting Joe Sloan and not considering Cortez Hankton? It would be foolish to think Hankton doesn't have a shot at the job, but Sloan has prior experience as an offensive coordinator, and he did a pretty dang good job at Louisiana Tech for two seasons.

So, I do think if Brian Kelly decides to hire someone from within the building to fill the offensive coordinator position, it's going to be Joe Sloan because of his experience.

With that said, should LSU promote Joe Sloan to offensive coordinator after his performance calling plays in the ReliaQuest Bowl?

Honestly, it all depends on your options. We don't know who LSU will reach out to outside of the building regarding the open position as Kelly has kept that intel very close to the vest, but I'm sure there are a lot of great offensive coordinators out there who would love to fill the role.

What I will say is I think Sloan has a very good shot. He is already employed by LSU, but Monday was certainly part one of his "interview" for the offensive coordinator position.

I already talked about this a bit in an earlier article talking about what we should expect the offense to look like with Sloan calling plays, but we saw pretty much what I expected from this LSU offense; a pretty balance attack that focused more on the pass game as they try to show off their shiny new toy in Garrett Nussmeier.

If you look at the box score, LSU threw the ball 45 times to 25 rushes, but if you take away the Tigers first three drive where I think they were trying to get Nussmeier settled in, the Tigers attempted 31 passes to 20 rushes.

With Sloan as play caller, the Tigers were much more successful in the passing game. They completed 69-percent of their passes for 395 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. On the ground, the Tigers totaled 97 yards on 3.9 YPC, but that's without Jayden Daniels who was accounting for more yards than any other Tiger on the ground this year.

This game was a great first test for both Nussmeier and Sloan. The Badgers had a top-20 scoring defense, and they still managed to score more points than any other team had against them all season. I know they were down some key players on defense, but that shouldn't take away from a great game they played, especially in the second half.

While I do think there are better options for offensive coordinator out there, I do think Sloan would be a viable option as OC for LSU in 2024. He has experience calling plays, he's worked with Nussmeier for the past two seasons and he knows the passing game as good as anyone else out there.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Tigers do their due diligence and interview some other play callers, but I also wouldn't be too surprised if Sloan ends up with the job if they can't bring in any of their top targets.

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