Fun is back in LSU football

Published 7:43 am Sunday, October 2, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">BATON ROUGE — Perhaps it was the spirit of a combination of two ugly seasons, but a popular tailgating T-shirt outside Tiger Stadium Saturday afternoon carried the following slogan:</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: ‘Myriad Pro’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">ORGERON/ARANDA 16</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: ‘Myriad Pro’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Make LSU Great Again</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Settle down now. Don’t get too carried away by LSU 42, Missouri 7.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It may</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">be too early to call a now 3-2 team great.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The visiting Tigers making their first-ever trip to Tiger Stadium maybe had no idea what they were walking into.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Neither did anybody from LSU.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was an experiment, supposedly temporary, to put a crazy, boisterous and loud Cajun in charge of the state’s flagship football program, which had been kind of quiet lately.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Who knew what might happen?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And you still don’t know how it will end.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But say this for the debut of the Ed Orgeron era: LSU football was dang well fun again.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not just watchable.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not just serviceable.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not just good enough to hold on against an outmanned opponent.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was rollicking and frolicking and several small-town festivals rolled into one.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">OK, this was one night.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe it won’t always be 42 points and 634 yards worth of fun, but …</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Wait a minute.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That can’t be right.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Six-hundred and who?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU is a charter member of the SEC and in 83 previous years the Tigers had never rung up 634 yards on a conference opponent.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">A lot of those yards came from names you never heard of, by means never dreamed of and most of all, crazy and nutty as it all seems, none of them looked like the Tigers were pulling teeth.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Isn’t that the LSU offense you’d come to dred?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This is what it looks like when kids were having fun running all over the field instead of beating their heads against a wall all night.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“We put the pedal to the medal,” Orgeron said. “There’s wasn’t going to be any let-up in this team. We’d have scored more if we could.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But really, if it was as simple as putting a nutty Cajun in charge, you could’ve plugged Justin Wilson into the equation years ago.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">For now, Orgeron will do, no matter how l</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">ong this run lasts with interim attached to his dream of having LSU head coach in front of his name.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That was wild.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Whatcha say, guy</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">s?” Orgeron gravel-barked to open his postgame media chitchat with a smile as big as the hometown LaRose bayous.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Well, uh, Cajun, suppose you tell us.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">None of us knew what to say. None of us recognized much of what happened Saturday night.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“This was a tremendous day for LSU,” Orgeron said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Well, it was certainly different.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“This is Tiger Stadium,” he explained. “This is the way it’s supposed to be.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Who knew?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But for one night, everything every disgruntled LSU fan ever suspected seemed to be true.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe Missouri would have reacted differently with advance warning that all the rules in Tiger Stadium had changed and LSU was joining the 21st century offensively.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Why couldn’t Les Miles do this?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Why wouldn’t he?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">An offensive rebirth can’t be as easy as Orgeron and new offensive coordinator Steve Ens</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">minger made it look.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it was true — everything Orgeron said he was going to do, he did.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In layman terms: throw it all over the place early, make them defend it, and then run it while they’re confused.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU threw on their first four plays and netted only one first down before punting.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But the gauntlet was thrown down, then they started mixing it up, still often — heaven forbid — throwing on first down.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">To be honest, it seemed like the Tigers threw for more than 216 yards, and I could have sworn they threw it more than 30 times.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe it was the way it was mixed in all night, on any down or distance. Maybe just having three, four wide receivers spread around the joint opens up other things.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But while LSU was proving it wasn’t afraid to throw the ball anymore, a really nutty thing happened — the Tigers ran for 418 yards, with playmakers seemingly slipping into open spaces all night.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So that’s how it works.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“You send those wides deep a few times and it opens up the run,” Orgeron explained.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The toss sweep isn’t extinct, but that archaic “bunch formation” package may be in the dumpster.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“There were a lot changes.” Orgeron said. “It’s good they could see it works. Now, they’ll say this stuff works. Now they can believe in what we’re doing.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Meanwhile, LSU came within 6:11 and a trick play of shutting out a team that scored 79 points last week (OK, that was against Delaware State, but still Mizzou did lead the SEC passing and total offense).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But LSU is used to bragging on its defense.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">On the first night of Orgeron’s eight-game audition, it all got lost amidst the offense fireworks.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There were wide-eyed smiles all over Tiger Stadium again.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They hadn’t had this much fun in a long, long while.</span>

<span class="R~sep~AZaphdingbatdot7pt">l</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Scooter Hobbs</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">covers LSU</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">athletics. Email him at</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">shobbs@americanpress.com</span>