Only travel agents from the back-back bayou apparently can be trusted when it comes to recommending a truly fine dining experience at a neighborhood fillin’ station.
But if Ed Orgeron, the LSU coach, is your go-to tour guide, you’re going to end up very lost and possibly confused in the small and quite quaint town of Oxford, Mississippi.
No, no. One more time. It’s not the Exxon station in Oxford you’re looking for.
Forget what Coach O said at his Monday news luncheon. He misspoke.
What he meant to say was that it’s the Chevron station in Oxford that will take care of all your culinary needs, at least as they pertain to the slightly world famous Chicken-on-a-Stick therein.
The Chevron is just off The Square on South Lamar, apparently, which is a stone’s throw from the Ole Miss campus and which is, for my money, a better pregame experience than the more famous tailgating at The Grove (where often they dress for church and break out the white linen, fine china and an occasional candelabra).
On The Square there’s Central Grocery and Ajax Diner, which are far fancier than they sound.
But the nearby Chevron apparently really is just a fillin’ station, an understated one at that … with some serious Chicken-on-a-Stick.
Coach O sure swears by it.
He’s already had to backtrack with no offense to Raising Cane’s, which puts out a different, stickless brand of bird altogether, but is a major, ahem, corporate sponsor of LSU athletics.
But that must be a mean bird on that stick at that Chevron.
The matter came up this week with Orgeron headed back to his old haunts to do battle with Ole Miss. It came out of nowhere, as they often do with Coach O, because he was trying to think of something or somebody he missed from his three years (2005-07) as head coach of the Rebels.
He didn’t exactly get the warm and fuzzies.
The best he could come up with was that he wouldn’t mind dropping by that Chevron.
“I hope the cook is still there, and I can stop by and say hello to her,” he said Monday. “That’s about all I remember.”
Truth is, the Rebels probably don’t miss him much, either, that Crazy Cajun lost in Faulkner’s Mississippi. They recall a lot of nutty head-coaching stunts and mostly a 10-25 record in his three years, for which he was fired before they ever understood a word he said.
Besides, the Ole Miss athletic department has cleaned house, with several rinses-and-repeats, since he was up there screaming and ripping his shirt off in front of terrified freshmen.
Not a lot of old friends still there. There’s even an alternate mascot — The Landsharks — that he won’t recognize.
But this week’s trip to Ole Miss is a rite of passage that he must make as LSU’s head coach.
If he hangs around LSU long enough, it will diminish with each trip. But this is the first.
He’s already played Ole Miss as LSU’s commander-in-chief, last year, but that was in Tiger Stadium, a 38-21 Orgeron victory.
Now he’s back on their turf, where he’d probably just as soon sneak in and out of the small town without really being noticed.
Good luck with that.
So far he’s off to a rocky start.
Monday, when he wasn’t waxing nostalgic about Chevron Chicken-on-a-Stick, he was referring to his hitch at Ole Miss as a “stepping stone” to the new and improved coach he insists he has become at LSU.
Not content with that, he also explained to an ESPN writer that “The truth is the whole time I was there I was wishing I were here.”
Neither statement probably came out like he intended, but social media is never so forgiving. It is blowing up in Cajun and having itself a field day.
So you can be sure he has riled up the good people of Ole Miss to a fine lather.
What he probably was trying to say was that he appreciated his time at Ole Miss and, while stopping short of apologizing for his many mistakes, it was there that he learned the lessons that he thinks will make him successful at LSU.
“This game is not about me,” he said in a more diplomatic tone. “I had a tremendous opportunity at Ole Miss. I didn’t get it done, but the past is the past. Me and my family have moved forward.”
His time at Ole Miss was “something I needed, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the mistakes that happened there. Hopefully I don’t make them here.
“I learned my strengths and weaknesses as a head coach. I learned how to fire guys that are good at what I’m not good at.”
It’s going to be an interesting reunion, whether or not he gets a finder’s fee from the Exx … uh, the Chevron.
But there is that Chicken-on-a-Stick. Insider’s tip: Get a potato log to go with it.
{{tncms-inline content=”<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><strong>MORE HONORS:</strong></span><span class="s1"> Linebacker Devin White, whose career-high 15 tackles vs. Auburn was his fifth consecutive game with double-figure stops, was named the Chuck Bednarik National Player of the Week. White was also named the Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Week for the second straight game as well as the Louisiana defensive player of the week. D.J. Chark, who had 150 yards in receptions and the 75-yard punt return that jump-started the Tigers&rsquo; comeback over Auburn, was named the SEC co-Offensive Player of the Week and the state&rsquo;s offensive player of the week.</span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1"><strong>WOUNDED TIGERS:</strong></span><span class="s1"> Toby Weathersby was back at practice Tuesday, giving the Tigers one of the two starting offensive tackles who missed last week’s Auburn game. Weathersby was in a non-contact jersey, but head coach Ed Orgeron is optimistic that he will play this week against Ole Miss.&nbsp;</span></p>” id=”6ea05a41-1c30-42d0-ad2e-660c9fb10408″ style-type=”info” title=”LSU Tidbits” type=”relcontent”}}
MORE HONORS: Linebacker Devin White, whose career-high 15 tackles vs. Auburn was his fifth consecutive game with double-figure stops, was named the Chuck Bednarik National Player of the Week. White was also named the Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Week for the second straight game as well as the Louisiana defensive player of the week. D.J. Chark, who had 150 yards in receptions and the 75-yard punt return that jump-started the Tigers’ comeback over Auburn, was named the SEC co-Offensive Player of the Week and the state’s offensive player of the week.
WOUNDED TIGERS: Toby Weathersby was back at practice Tuesday, giving the Tigers one of the two starting offensive tackles who missed last week’s Auburn game. Weathersby was in a non-contact jersey, but head coach Ed Orgeron is optimistic that he will play this week against Ole Miss.
