Orgeron playing for keeps

Published 7:47 am Saturday, December 31, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">ORLANDO, Fla. — Presumably Ed Orgeron realizes the honeymoon is over now.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So don’t bring up the popular “meaningless” word when it comes to the stakes for LSU this morning — yes, morning, a god-forbidden 10 a.m. eye-opener — in the Citrus Bowl against Louisville.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Make no mistake. Regardless of what happens, it won’t create so much as a ripple on the national scene.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it’s a big game for Orgeron.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He needs to set the tone for his administration.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was one thing when he was auditioning for the job.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was a curious journey, putting a full-blooded Cajun in charge of the Tigers seemed like something out of a low-brow movie comedy.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But everybody, it seemed, was pulling for him.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">How could you not? It’s too good of a feel-good story with a native son, down-to-earth character in the lead role.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The gravel accent alone made it hard to resist.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Now, Orgeron just needs to reassure everyone that this grand experiment will, you know, like actually work out.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The audition was fun to watch. He brought some new energy, for sure, even somewhat of a jazzed-up offense and lot of raw, bayou charisma.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The players were all in from the beginning. They rallied around him, seemingly lead blocking for the quest to get him his dream job.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Now they know he’s their coach. Will it be different?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“This is not about being my first game,” Orgeron said Friday. “This is about our players. This is about our coaching staff. This is about the LSU family, going to play a good Louisville football team and wanting to win a game. That’s all it’s about.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sorry, coach, but you know better.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This is Orgeron/LSU now working without a safety net.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There’s no turning back now.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">For the program there’s no fall-back plan if it blows up in his face, no delusional dreams of Jimbo Fisher or Jon Gruden or the maybe ghost of Vince Lombardi walking in through the vortex of a coaching search to thank him for his time in watching over the program for a spell.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">For better or worse, Orgeron is the LSU head coach.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Lay an egg and that whole fan base — the one he’s charmed to LaFourche and back— suddenly starts shifting uneasily in their chairbacks and pirogues.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sure, Orgeron has been saying this week that it doesn’t feel that different to him, even as a first game with the “interim” tag removed from the job title that he’s coveted all of his adult life.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I promised myself, No. 1, when I got the interim job, I was going to be the head coach at LSU,” Orgeron said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">True, he never really considered himself an interim coach. Or at least he never quit believing, that’s for sure.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That’s what captured the imagination of everybody.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He made no bones about it. He was putting his life’s dream out there in public for everybody to see. To a degree, those last seven games were all about him. It was the subplot that dominated the post-Les Miles season.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">All it needed was one of those oversized thermometers of a charity campaign to chart the progress of the quest.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There was no finite number attached, so it was always open for interpretation.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He didn’t beat Alabama for the clincher and some would even say that with a 5-2 record, he got a little bit of a homeboy discount to get the job full-time in the end.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But nobody seemed to have a problem with it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That ?— those seven games — could probably be considered the honeymoon in this deal.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Now there’s no turning back.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh, should things go awry today — and it’s not unheard of in football — there could be “yeah, buts” to pull out as handy excuses (although that’s not Orgeron’s style).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">True, this isn’t the final Orgeron product. This was the makeshift version.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There are still some staff changes on the way when this topsy-turvy season comes to an end. It could look a little different (likely) or a lot different (possible).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There’s a new offense on order, still under wraps — probably still in the planning stages — but reportedly one with all the bells and whistles college fans have been accustomed to.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That could be a mitigating factor, perhaps.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But the average fan doesn’t look at it that way.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They just want to see what their full-time head coach looks like.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And today it happens.</span>