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I Take It Back; Ed Orgeron Is The Favorite To Win The LSU Job
Late last week, I published a post here on Death Valley Voice telling you why I did not believe that LSU interim head coach Ed Orgeron was even remotely close to being a real candidate to win the Tigers’ permanent head coaching job. Today, I’m here to tell you why I could not have been more wrong.
That post garnered quite a bit of negative reaction on social media, and I expected that. The majority of the fanbase loves Coach O, and I do as well. But after firing Les Miles, I just didn’t think the big-money decision makers at LSU would want anything other than a premier candidate as their next head man.
But after what I saw from this team against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles, I am now willing to confidently say that not only is Ed Orgeron a candidate to win this job, but he’s the clear-cut favorite.
On the surface, saying a win against Southern Miss swayed my thinking from “no shot” to “clear-cut favorite” sounds absurd, but allow me to explain.
First, let’s look back to Orgeron’s first game as the team’s head coach. Les Miles had just been fired, the program was a mess, and he had less than a full week to get everything in order and prepare to face conference foe Missouri. Not only did he prepare the team to win, but he led them to a 42-7 throttling of an SEC opponent. You can argue how quality of an opponent Missouri is, but a blowout against an SEC team is impressive, no matter who it is.
In that game against the Tigers, the team showed heart and passion unlike anything we had seen under Les Miles in recent years. He looked to have the team on the right track, and his ability to motivate and lead were obvious, but I still didn’t think the pedigree was quite there.
When the team came out and played Southern Miss to a 10-10 tie going into halftime, I had pretty much written Orgeron off in frustration. The Missouri game was looking like a fluke, and I was counting the days to Tom Herman’s introductory press conference.
But then something incredible happened. The LSU Tigers came out of the locker room and and hung 35 points on the Golden Eagles, winning by a final score of 45-10. We saw the same intensity we had seen against Missouri, and the team had made some great adjustments heading into the second half of play.
It was that second half that led me to finally come around on the fact that Ed Orgeron is the perfect man to lead this team. The way he took a struggling, uninspired team and flipped them into a high intensity, dominant squad in the span of a 20-minute intermission was absolutely incredible. I don’t care who it was against, the way he motived his guys and adjusted what he and his staff were doing was phenomenal.
Orgeron still likely has to manage to have a winning record in this tough five-game conference slate the Tigers have coming up, but at this point in time, he is undoubtedly the favorite to win the job going forward.
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