Orgeron’s ‘homecoming’

Published 8:33 pm Saturday, October 21, 2017

Old rivalry game with subplots abound

OXFORD, Miss. — LSU head coach Ed Orgeron has said all week that tonight’s game with Ole Miss is not about him.

He went so far as to joke that LSU needs to go to Los Angeles and play Southern Cal just so he can revisit another of the old haunts where he was once an interim head coach.

But it’s a game — at the school where he famously bombed with a 10-25 record in three years as head coach — that he’s got to get out of the way now that’s he got his dream job coaching the Tigers.

It’s an old rivalry game that back in the day didn’t need any subplots.

Or the “Magnolia Bowl,” the trophy that in recent years has gone to the victor.

And, as far as the two head coaches are concerned, it’s still one of the top games on each’s calendar.

“It’s a rivalry game,” Orgeron said, digging into his fountain of LSU lore. ‘This is for the fans. This is for the ’70s. This is for our players. This is Ronnie Estay sacking Archie Manning; this is a battle, a border state, bragging rights, all that stuff. This is what college football is about.”

“It’s a huge game,” Ole Miss interim head coach Matt Luke said. “I think fans will be excited to be here. It’s Ole Miss-LSU.”

The Tigers (4-2, 2-1 Southeastern Conference) have won two straight since their inexplicable loss to Troy, including last week with a 28-23 win over Auburn for LSU’s biggest comeback ever in Tiger Stadium against an SEC team.

It might as well be Ole Miss’ bowl game. The Rebels (3-3, 1-2) won’t have a trip at the end of the season due to self-imposed postseason ban while awaiting the results of an NCAA investigation.

Luke is trying to do at Ole Miss this year what Orgeron did at LSU last year, namely to parlay the interim head coaching job into the same kind of full-time dream Orgeron realized last season. Luke, a former Ole Miss lineman, comes from a long line of Rebels in his family.

He got his shot at this interim audition when former head coach Hugh Freeze was fired in July.

He was originally hired at Ole Miss by Orgeron for the latter’s final season there.

“I only worked with him for a year, but we are cordial,” Luke said. “It’ll be a competitive game and I’m looking forward to it. 

“I liked his energy. It’s easy to see why players rally around him and play for him. Those are the two things I learned being around him, the amount of energy and his work ethic. He has a tireless work ethic.”

Luke was particularly impressed with what Orgeron has done with the Tigers the last two weeks after the embarrassing loss to Troy. 

“Any time somebody gets written off and you can bounce back, that’s really special,” Luke said. “That’s a tribute to coach Orgeron for him to rally his team.

“I’ve been impressed at how they’ve rallied. To go on the road to get a win at Florida then come and beat a top-10 team, they obviously have things going in the right direction. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

This game it will be different, at least going in.

LSU was the underdog going into its last two games. This time the Tigers will have to handle the favorite’s role in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, where the Tigers have lost in three of their last four visits.

LSU is a seven-point favorite.

“We don’t talk about it at all,” Orgeron said. “They know they’re going into a hostile environment. We don’t know who the underdog is. We fight, scratch and claw every week. It’s been showing the last two weeks. This week is going to be the same thing.”