Orgeron gets to meet Tiger Nation
Published 5:46 am Wednesday, May 10, 2017
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If you’re looking for a genuine, Ed Orgeron-autographed football, don’t call LSU. Talk to McNeese’s Lance Guidry, who happens to be Orgeron’s twin sons’ head coach with the Cowboys.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There it was, a room full of doting LSU alumni right there in the L’Auberge events center for the 2017 Tiger Tour, and Guidry won the drawing for what for anybody else will surely be a prized possession.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh, yes he did.</span>
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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They insisted it was a blind drawing.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Look for it on eBay soon.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Orgeron is learning the lay of the land quickly around LSU.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mainly, if you want to get a word in with the Tigers — even when a full events center paid $100 a pop to hang on every, gravel-laced one of them — you first have to get past D-D Breaux.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It takes more than an autographed football.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The force of nature that is the Tigers’ double-dynamo national runner-up gymnastics coach is almost as Cajun as Coach B?B? is, and she can outtalk any 10 of his kinfolk down on the bayou.</span>
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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Orgeron was patient, listening and chuckling along with everybody else as the national coach of the year raved about her team’s new “facilities” — and by facilities, she meant the restroom variety, and, to hear her go on about them, they must really be state-of-the-art.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Tough act to follow. Got a standing O before Coach O could even get on stage. She has this cockeyed view that her sport should be fun — even when most everybody came to hear about football.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">For that matter, new basketball coach Will Wade could pass for a young, suspiciously energetic TV preacher … or, uh, Dale Brown.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He sure talks a good game. He should be entertaining. LSU basketball, he insists, will be “great at everything” … “best in the conference.” He presented ?— preached, actually — a fairly detailed blueprint. Well, good luck with that. But it’s a sport that’s still optional for the LSU fan base.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not so with football.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So, without further ado, Coach B?B?, a Louisiana story seemingly too Cajun good not to have a happy ending.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I don’t think there was any other choice but to hire Ed,” LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva said of the fan groundswell that helped sweep Orgeron into office. “I couldn’t be more excited about the future of our football program.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Really? No choice.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Orgeron’s version was that, while promoting his “One team, one heartbeat” mantra in the early days of his interim status, he invited Alleva to a tug of war in front of his Tigers to demonstrate what happens when the whole team isn’t pulling in the same direction.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I’m not the smartest guy,” he said. “I’m from south Lafourche. But I let Joe win the tug of war.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Orgeron knows how to play to the crowd.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU apparently still doesn’t trust its head coaches to go head-to-head in Q&A with dues-paying alums — even three as comfortable on stage as those Tuesday night.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Orgeron is comfortable with his pair of rock-star coordinators — Dave Aranda on defense and his prize new hire Matt Canada on offense.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He let his staff go a day before Christmas, returning the day after to resume preparing for Louisville and the Citrus Bowl.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Orgeron went through an entertaining laundry list of the clich? Cajun dishes he whipped up for the holiday.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">When they got back, Aranda told him, I got a few things about Louisville I want to double-check with you on.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Dave had 28 pages of notes on Louisville!” Orgeron said incredulously. “I don’t think he went Christmas shopping.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“He can write so fast,” Orgeron said.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In fact, Orgeron asked Aranda if he could borrow his writing pen.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“You’ve got one right in front of you,” Aranda said.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Mine don’t write that fast,” Orgeron told him.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But everybody knows about Aranda.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The LSU buzz is about Canada, and the eternal quest to bring the Tigers’ offense into the 21st century.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He PowerPointed a clip of the Tigers spread from sideline to sideline during spring practice.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Ladies and gentlemen, that is the spread offense … are you happy?”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Click the PowerPoint, circle another player.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“That, Tigers, is a tight end, Jacory Washington from Lake Charles (Westlake, actually, but he was on a roll, let him go). Now watch this. We threw to him. Are you happy?”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Evidently so.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">His failed first go at head coaching at Ole Miss?</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I made all my mistakes over there,” Orgeron said. “So ya’ll ain’t got to worry about them.”</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Almost brought the house down. You’d have thought they all won autographed footballs.</span>
<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Guidry was still clutching the only one on the block for the night.</span>