Ed Orgeron and Tigers in Turmoil
LSU hosts Central Michigan in Death Valley and the Tigers are three-touchdown favorites per our friends in the Mojave Desert.
The bevy of blue-chip prospects that form the LSU roster likely ensure a Tigers win. However, I am not a gambling man myself but would wager on the Chips to be more competitive than a three-touchdown blowout.
Put simply, I have much more faith in Jim McElwain than I do Ed Orgeron. In the same vein as last week’s Broken Coverage on Steve Sarkisian and Sam Pittman, the career arcs of McElwain and Orgeron that bring them together in Baton Rouge fascinate me.
McElwain seems like he should be more celebrated in college coaching circles than he is. One of the first of the Alabama Nick Saban coaching tree to branch out, he boasts the pedigree. McElwain’s been successful at every stop as a head coach, leading Colorado State to heights it hadn’t reached since the Sonny Lubick era (and is woefully short of now), won back-to-back divisional titles at Florida, and led Central Michigan to the MAC Championship Game in his first season.
That McElwain is at Central Michigan now, though, I find somewhat perplexing. Seemingly from the moment he arrived in Gainesville to rebuild from the mess of the Will Muschamp era, the conversation around McElwain felt like this:
McElwain won nine and 10 games in his first two seasons at Florida and appeared in the SEC Championship Game twice. The 2017 team regressed ahead of his midseason firing, but the Gators’ 3-4 start and Mac’s subsequent dismissal sure appeared like an excuse for boosters who never backed the hire to make their move.
My suspicions aside, McElwain’s proved his value before Florida and continues to now. The Chips already took one SEC opponent to the wire this season in a 34-24 loss at Missouri, and they look like MAC title contenders with an exciting and innovative offense.
LSU is on the opposite trajectory.
I’ll admit to the possibility of confirmation bias upfront: I have never been keen on Ed Orgeron as a head coach. His tenure at Ole Miss was disastrous, and USC fans continue to pine for him after an overrated tenure as interim following Lane Kiffin’s firing.
The Trojans finished 6-2 after Orgeron took over, but lost to both of their chief rivals. Make no mistake: The second of those losses being a 35-14 ass-kicking at the hands of UCLA would have had the loudest portion of the USC fan base livid had Pat Haden removed Orgeron’s interim tag, and disgruntled boosters ready to pounce at the first sign of struggle come 2014 and 2015 — sorta like McElwain at Florida.
It’s two days too late for What If Wednesday, but an abbreviated version of the exercise: No, had Orgeron been promoted at USC, the Trojans wouldn’t have won a national championship and he’d probably have been let go in a similar timeline as Sarkisian.
USC returned talent, but NCAA scholarship reductions in the preceding years profoundly impacted the Trojans’ depth. What’s more, Orgeron would not have inherited a coaching staff with Dave Aranda as defensive coordinator — and I doubt he’d have been shown the patience at USC he had at LSU to land an offensive coordinator the caliber of Joe Brady, largely because SC wasn’t faced with paying the previous coach a $6.5 million buyout as LSU was with Les Miles.
Aranda’s hire preceding Orgeron’s promotion, landing Brady and the transfer of Joe Burrow in from Ohio State’s logjammed quarterback situation provided the perfect storm for a dominant LSU championship.
The afterglow of the national title dulling with a loss to UCLA in which the Bruins were the better coached, more physical team offers some amusing symmetry, particularly after Orgeron’s “sissy blue shirt” pro-wrestling promo on some student that dripped with the phony bravado the dweebiest dweebs of college football media eat up.
But really, if it hadn’t been UCLA, it would have been some other opponent.
What preceded the Playoff run during the 2017 season (the lowlight being a Homecoming Game loss to Troy) and in the season-and-change since are Clay Helton-USC-teams-levels of underwhelming.
LSU looks from an outsider perspective like a program in serious turmoil — and that’s before getting into the Title IX allegations that share some unsettling similarities with Baylor under Art Briles.
Something that to normal-brained people probably seems rather insignificant struck me as indicative of LSU’s dire straits. The program’s official Twitter account sent out a hype video narrated by Barstool Sports’ duo Dan Katz and Eric Sollenberger who, while I find painfully unfunny, acknowledge comedy’s subjective and their popularity is undeniable.
But a promotional video laced with podcasters’ inside jokes and references to Twitch-streaming LSU games on NCAA Football 14 comes off comparably to the gimmicks last-place Major League Baseball teams pull to get fans into the ballpark; the San Diego Chicken visiting, a dancing groundskeeper and what have you. Proverbial jingling keys to distract you from the mess on the field.
The Tigers will probably beat Central Michigan in a manner similar to its lethargic defeat of McNeese, an opponent one week removed from losing to Div. II West Florida. And I suspect the Chips will leave Death Valley with a lot more positive to take from the experience in a defeat than LSU will in a win.