LSU's Quiet Happenings Are Deafening to Insiders

Larry Burton (Panama City Beach, FL). Earlier this month, LSU was all set to have another big Bayou Bash recruiting party, but this one was less attended and celebrated with less buzz because of several quite little things that many who don't cover SEC football might have missed.

First of all, after finishing the second straight disappointing season, that hurt the overall celebratory buzz, but the class that was supposed to be a top class ended up with several de-commitments as well.

When you took fourth-ranked defensive tackle Cassius Marsh of Westlake Village, Calif., to UCLA; No. 4 receiver Mike Davis of Dallas to Texas; No. 8 receiver Justin Hunter of Virginia Beach, Va., to Tennessee; and highly-regarded junior college offensive tackle Jermarcus Hardrick of Fort Scott, Kan., to Nebraska out of the picture, that class fell to about a number seven or eight class.

Why were all these defections not given major attention? This is quite a large of number of players to leave so soon yet the major media has chosen to not report on it.

Why all this ship jumping in the first place? There are many theories on it, and that isn't the point of this article, so you can draw your own conclusions, but just the fact these players jumped is news to many casual SEC fans.

Another huge quiet move that was not reported by any other single major sports publication was the departure of Aikeem Hicks, the player who was allegedly paid to come to LSU by now fired assistant head coach, D.J. Mcarthy, who is still at the center of the pending investigation.

Aikeem Hicks was part of the highly touted 2009 class. This is just another example of an LSU defection by a top athlete. Hicks was the 20th rated JUCO player when brought in to LSU.

LSU will certainly cushion any blow the NCAA may want to deliver at this case by pointing to the fact that they fired the coach responsible, and the player in question was never allowed to take the field.

At best, those actions could cause them to avoid vacating wins and severe scholarship reductions. But any investigation are charges are bad for recruiting and morale.

What's strange about the Hick's story is not that he's leaving, but where he's going. There is no word anywhere about where he may go from LSU. Will Miles waive any waiting restrictions before he allowed to play?

Lastly is the number of coaching changes. Two years ago, there was a major upheaval when John Chavis took over as defensive coordinator and made some changes, but this year has seen a lot of coaching changes, too.

Besides the aforementioned D.J. Mcarthy's firing, Larry Porter, the school's ace recruiter and assistant head coach, left the program to become the head coach of Memphis and tight-ends coach.  Recruiting coordinator Don Yanowsky also moved on. 

These were three hot shot recruiters for Miles, and the sting from their loss may not be felt for a while.

So while there's been no real noise coming from LSU lately, the actions could be deafening to someone who understands the repercussions from all these actions and the long-term effect it could cause.