LSU heading back to Orlando to play Notre Dame
Published 7:00 pm Monday, December 4, 2017
So it’s more mouse ears for LSU.
Also more leprechauns.
The Tigers will be going to the Citrus Bowl in the shadow of Disney World again for the second straight postseason where a familiar brandname opponent will also be waiting.
LSU (9-3), which stayed steady at No. 17 in the final CFP poll, will play No. 14 Notre Dame (9-3) in Orlando, Fla., at noon on New Year’s Day.
LSU beat Louisville 29-9 in the same bowl last year in what was Ed Orgeron’s first game after being named the Tigers permanent head coach.
“We had a tremendous time last year,” Orgeron said. “Looking forward to going up against a great Notre Dame team. I’ve got the utmost respect for Coach Brian Kelly and his program. It should be a big, physical football game.”
“We feel like this is the best thing that could have happened, especially a marquee matchup. It’s going to be a war.”
Kelly agreed.
“They fit the profile of an SEC team with great skill,” Kelly said. “What stands out is the way they finished. Really playing great against Texas A&M, really played well late and settled into who they are. The have an identity — 9-3 out of the SEC, that’s quite a year.”
It’s the first time LSU has gone to the same bowl in consecutive years since the Sugar Bowls following the 1958 and 1959 seasons and the first time the Citrus Bowl has had the same team back since Tennessee went in 1995-96.
“We thought LSU was the best team on the board,” Citrus Bowl CEO Steve Hogan said on a teleconference Sunday, adding that in talks with LSU the school seemed agreeable to the encore. “With their interest to come here, that made the difference.”
LSU was the highest ranked SEC team available for the Citrus after Georgia and Alabama made the College Football Playoff and Auburn was selected for the New Year’s Six Peach Bowl.
“I fully expect that the country will rate this one of the three or four best postseason games,” Hogan said.
“I’ve been to many bowls in my career, and the Citrus is one of the great ones,” Orgeron said.
Citrus Bowl Notre Dame vs LSU Noon, Jan. 1, 2018
It will be the 12th time LSU has played Notre Dame and the fourth time the two schools have matched up in a bowl game.
Notre Dame leads the series 6-5, including the most recent, a 31-28 win on a lastplay field goal in the 2014 Music City Bowl in Nashville.
Orgeron joined the LSU staff as defensive line coach shortly after that game, but doesn’t remember watching much of it.
“It was a very good outing by Notre Dame and LSU did not play well that day,” Orgeron said. “That’s all I remember.”
LSU won the other two bowl matchups — 41-14 in the 2006 Sugar Bowl and 27-9 in the 1997 Independence Bowl.
Orgeron is very familiar with the Irish — and not just from growing up in Louisiana and watching some of the past LSU battles with them.
He was at Miami during the hey day of the Hurricanes’ famed “Catholics vs. Convicts” matchups with Notre Dame and spent two different stints at Southern Cal, which has a long-standing annual rivalry with the Irish.
“I played these guys maybe 11 times in my career,” Orgeron said.
The Tigers’ return trip to Orlando will be their fifth appearance in the Citrus Bowl, dating back to 1979 when it was called the Tangerine Bowl and LSU’s 34-10 win over Wake Forest was Charles McClendon’s final game as head coach.
It’s was also the site of Nick Saban’s final game at LSU, when the Tigers lost to Iowa 30-25 on a Hail Mary following the 2004 season.
LSU also lost to Penn State in Orlando following the 2012 season, a game best remembered for the quagmire of a playing field following heavy rains.
Camping World Stadium now has artificial turf.
LSU was one of nine SEC teams to learn a postseason fate Sunday, including Georgia and Alabama as the first two teams from the same conference to make the CFP.
After Auburn to the Peach, of the next tier of bowls the Citrus is the only slot with an SEC agreement that gets to pick its team.
Hogan said South Carolina and Mississippi State were also considered for the Citrus.
The SEC office, in consultation with the schools and bowls, selects where the remaining conference teams
Citrus Bowl
