Scooter Hobbs

Two years ago at this time you couldn’t have picked Joe Brady out of a police lineup if he was up there surrounded by unicorns and jackalopes.

Now he’s the hottest thing in football coaching, at least in the wunderkind division.

Less than one year after single-handedly leading LSU to the national championship while molding a Heisman Trophy winner out of raw clay, he did a quick toe-tap season in the NFL. Now half the league reportedly wants to see if Brady, now a grizzled 31 years old, is interested in being their head coach.

Well, three of them — the Texans, Falcons and Chargers — anyway, according to a report by NFL Insider.

Yet somehow Brady is managing to juggle those opportunities around helping his old pal Ed Orgeron figure out how to replicate what Brady did with the Tigers. You know, something like 15-0.

Orgeron, who sparked this rapid rise when he hired the totally unknown Brady from the New Orleans Saints’ analysts room — maybe one pay grade above the steno pool — now seeks counsel from Brady.

Orgeron has to replace five assistant coaches on his staff, most notably both ends of the offensive coordinator/passing game coordinator tag-team partnership that Brady and Steve Ensminger turned into a football Butch and Sundance.

So he called Brady to ask “Who can run your offense?”

“I thought those two guys worked great together two years ago,” Orgeron said Tuesday during his weekly appearance on a Baton Rouge radio show. “I believe in Joe, I believe in Steve Ensminger and I believe we lost a little of that this season. I want to get back to that offense.”

Who wouldn’t?

But maybe he’s chatting up the wrong Joe. It’s possible Joe Burrow had something to do with the 2019 magic.

OK, not going to happen.

So, anyway, Ensminger retired after this season, although he’ll still be hanging around as an analyst.

Evidently Scott Linehan didn’t quite work out in replacing Brady as Ensminger’s sidekick this year and he and LSU have, as they say, “parted ways.”

So Orgeron called Brady, who, for now at least, is still offensive coordinator with the Carolina Panthers, who are searching for a new general manager after a 5-11 season under first-year head coach Matt Ruhle.

As luck would have it, Brady happened to have two coaches right there on his own Carolina staff whom he thought would be perfect.

“He’s given me two guys who are here (interviewing) today,” Orgeron said.

It just can’t be that easy.

But the Panthers’ quarterback coach, Jake Peetz, was to interview for the offensive coordinator spot, while 30-year-old D.J. Mangas, presently an offensive assistant, gets a shot at the passing game coordinator.

Or, let me double-check, maybe it’s the other way around. No, that is correct.

Peetz is 37 years old with several years on four NFL teams under his belt. He was the Panthers’ quarterbacks coach.

Mangas would be the Brady “knock-off,” as he’s in a position similar to what Brady was doing with the Saints when head coach Sean Payton recommended him to Orgeron.

So presumably LSU is married to the split offensive coordinator/passing game coordinator duties.

It would seem that to make it work it’s just as important to recreate the chemistry that Ensminger and Brady had as much as the brain power and creative X’s and O’s.

Considering all that it had to replace, and that LSU started seven of last year’s 10 games with two true freshmen quarterbacks, there wasn’t that much wrong with the offense last year.

Two of the games LSU lost it scored 34 points (Mississippi State) and 41 points (Missouri).

But, yes, of course, getting back to the 2019 fireworks would be great fun.

Recreating the original is never easy. It just seems to kind of come together when it happens. There’s no real blueprint for catching lightning in a bottle.

If Brady and the Panthers revolutionized NFL offense this season, they kept it to themselves. I believe I counted five interceptions against the Saints last week alone.

But Orgeron might at least consider going to the original source from whence Brady’s magic dust came.

That would be the Saints, just to check and see if maybe Payton’s offense has rubbed off on any more recent up-and-comers.

At any rate, these hires — and especially the defensive coordinator — are crucial for Orgeron if the 2020 season is going to be the fluke in his tenure and 2019 is to be closer to the norm.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.comScooter Hobbs (American Press)