LSU's offensive fate rests in the hands of ... Steve Kragthorpe?

LSU, you've got the momentum of an 11-win season, an encouraging Cotton Bowl win, 16 returning starters, the return of your head coach after an open flirtation with his alma mater, the long-awaited exit of maligned offensive coordinator Gary Crowton and a growing chorus of writers tabbing you as a preseason frontrunner for the 2011 BCS championship. What are you going to do next?

They're, uh, going to hire Steve Kragthorpe to run the offense:

Baton Rouge - Steve Kragthorpe has been hired as LSU's offensive coordinator, sources at the school confirmed Thursday.

Kragthorpe, 45, interviewed with Tigers Coach Les Miles on Tuesday and is being brought in to improve the quality of quarterback play as much as call plays. He will replace Gary Crowton who left LSU last week to become offensive coordinator at Maryland.

That's … well, it's bold, I guess, which certainly comports with Les Miles' philosophy of success. Kragthorpe, as Louisville fans will eagerly remind you, is the guy who took the Cardinal offense from a chart-topping juggernaut under predecessor Bobby Petrino to the bottom of the Big East in a short three years as UL head coach, failing to take a program with three straight top-20 finishes under Petrino to a single bowl game before being fired on the heels of a 4-8 collapse in 2009. Kragthorpe's Cardinals joined Buffalo as the only outfits – in or outside of the Big East – to suffer multiple defeats at the hands of Greg "Gerg" Robinson during his miserable four-year reign at Syracuse.

To be fair, success as a head coach isn't analogous to success as a coordinator (though Michigan fans who suffered under two miserable years of "Gerg" as defensive coordinator will tell you that it can be), and Kragthorpe's record as head resurrector of Tulsa's moribund program before the ill-fated turn at Louisville certainly qualified him for the promotion, even if his offenses there were nothing to write home about. He's not, like, destined for failure.

Still, it's a far cry from the marquee name Tigers fans were hoping to land for a serious title run in the fall. Considering the talent on hand (every Les Miles recruiting haul since 2006 has come in ranked among Rivals' top 10 classes nationally), LSU's offensive nosedive since the 2007 BCS championship season – Crowton's first in Baton Rouge – is shocking. The Tigers bottomed out in 2009, coming in dead last in the SEC in total offense, next-to-last in rushing and 10th in scoring; in 2010, they were 11th in total offense and brought up the rear in passing. Even mere mediocrity in 2008 was submarined by redshirt freshman quarterback Jarrett Lee and his endless parade of pick-sixes. In the draft, only two offensive players in four years under Crowton (third-rounders Early Doucet in 2008 and Brandon LaFell last year) have gone in the first four rounds, with no additions to that list expected this spring barring a gonzo effort or two at the combine.

It will be a disappointment, to say the least, if that's still the case over the next two years. Even with All-SEC running back Stevan Ridley's odd decision to declare for the draft, eight of the offensive starters who opened up a can on Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl are back in the fall, including four of five offensive linemen and former five-star recruits Reuben Randle and Russell Shepard, just hitting their make-or-break year as juniors. Hulking freshman running back Spencer Ware, a five-star recruit last year, was the breakout star of the A&M win, busting off 102 yards on just 10 carries (including gains of 18, 24 and 26 yards) in the first significant action of his career. That game was also the first time since '07 an LSU offense managed to put 40 points on the board against a defense that didn't finish in the bottom 25 nationally in points allowed, and with eight starters back on defense, pointed the way toward a return to the national elite.

With the other pieces in place, the key to Kragthorpe's – and LSU's – success is unquestionably quarterback Jordan Jefferson, who remains as much of a mystery after his 27th career start as he did after his first. With a solid contribution from the running game, his three-touchdown effort in the Cotton Bowl was one of the best nights of his career. If Kragthorpe can unlock that kind of effort from Jefferson and Ware on a consistent basis, the Tigers can come away with a ring or two. But there's no honeymoon period here: The opportunity is now.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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