Six degrees of coaches
Published 6:00 pm Thursday, September 5, 2019
LSU’s Aranda, Texas’ Herman share history
Offensive guru Tom Herman has led the Texas football program back to respectability. Herman, once courted by LSU to be its head coach, crossed paths in recent years with LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda. The two masterminds will match wits Saturday in Arlington, Texas.
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Dave Aranda, LSU defensive coordinator
Best he can remember, LSU’s Ed Orgeron has never met Texas head coach Tom Herman.
Sure, it’s well known that LSU was pursuing Herman as the Tigers’ head coach in 2016 when then-Athletic Director Joe Alleva opted against getting into a bidding war with Texas, deciding instead to take the “interim” tag off Orgeron’s head coaching title.
On social media and the rumor mill, the two seemed almost joined at the hip for the couple of days before they were hired a few hours apart by their present-day schools.
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But “I don’t think I’ve ever shaken his hand or met him one time,” Orgeron said on the Southeastern Conference teleconference Wednesday.
Same for Herman.
“Not really,” the Texas coach said earlier this week when asked if he knew Orgeron. “We’re cordial. I don’t know that we’ve talked on the phone or gone out to dinner.”
Maybe LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda can set up a formal introduction before Saturday’s highly anticipated showdown.
Or perhaps LSU quarterback Joe Burrow could get the two together — Herman recruited Burrow to Ohio State shortly before leaving for the job at Houston.
But Aranda and Herman go way back.
It happens more than you might imagine with the gypsy lifestyle coaches lead on the way up the coaching food chain.
“It’s all intertwined,” Herman said.
This tangled web goes all the way back to that noted football factory, Cal Lutheran College.
Herman was already there. In fact, when Aranda made a recruiting visit out of Redlands (Calif.) High School, Herman was his official host.
They ended up roommates, although Aranda didn’t last long as a player.
“He had to have five or six shoulder surgeries, and he was done playing pretty early,” Herman remembered. “So he transitioned into a student coach.”
It’s worked out for both.
Herman makes $5.5 million per year at Texas and he may be one of the reasons LSU has made Aranda the nation’s highest paid assistant at $2.5 million.
Instead, according to Herman, Aranda is one of the reasons Texas will have highly respected defensive coordinator Todd Orlando trying to shut down the Tigers’ new spread offense on Saturday.
Aranda and Herman haven’t spoken in two years, ever since they realized this game was looming.
“Prior to us finding that out, we’ve stayed in pretty close contact, Herman said. “Great relationship with Dave. Enjoyable guy to be around. Very cerebral.”
After their college days, Herman ended up at Sam Houston State as special teams coordinator.
Aranda was a graduate assistant at Texas Tech.
“I drove all the way from Huntsville to Lubbock and spent a couple of days trying to learn special teams drills and whatnot,” Herman said. “He was nice enough to let me stay at his apartment, all that stuff.”
They’ve squared off twice before, when Aranda was defensive coordinator at Wisconsin and Herman was offensive coordinator at Ohio State.
Herman and Ohio State got the better of those two meetings — 31-24 in 2013 before the eventual national champion Buckeyes put a 59-0 beatdown on the Badgers in the next season’s Big Ten championship game.
Herman parlayed that into his first head coaching job at Houston, where he hired Orlando — as his defensive coordinator.
It was on Aranda’s recommendation.
Orlando had worked under Aranda at Utah State, where Aranda was defensive coordinator before moving to Wisconsin. In fact, Orlando replaced him as Utah State’s defensive coordinator.
“What Todd did then (at Utah State) was a lot of carry over of what Dave was doing,” Herman said. “I know when I was calling around about Todd, Dave was somebody I leaned on heavily. He said it was a no-brainer, can’t miss.”
Fast-forward to the crazy Thanksgiving week of 2016, which ended with Herman a very rich coach at Texas and Orgeron getting his dream job at LSU.
Orgeron’s first order of business was nailing down Aranda to stay on as defensive coordinator.
The speculation was that Herman would lure Aranda over to run his defense.
Maybe LSU was leery of Texas’ deep pockets, maybe not.
But LSU quickly signed Aranda to a (since extended) three-year deal to stay with Orgeron.
So now the two old friends, one an offensive guru, the other a defensive mastermind, meet again.
Extra motivation?
“I think that’s overrated,” Orgeron said. “I think what you see on film is what you go after. But I think every once in a while there’s some internal motivation. But Coach Aranda would never say anything like that. He’s an ultimate professional.”
