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LSU Football: Ed Orgeron is the perfect coach, at the perfect time

By Zach Ragan

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - JANUARY 13: Head coach Ed Orgeron of the LSU Tigers talks to his team in the locker room after their 42-25 win over Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff National Championship game at Mercedes Benz Superdome on January 13, 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - JANUARY 13: Head coach Ed Orgeron of the LSU Tigers talks to his team in the locker room after their 42-25 win over Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff National Championship game at Mercedes Benz Superdome on January 13, 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images) /
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LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron is only the sixth active head coach who can claim a national championship.

LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron is a national champion.

That’s not a phrase that anyone would’ve expected to hear 15, 10 or even 2 years ago.

You see, Orgeron hasn’t always been a championship level head coach.

He was ousted at Ole Miss in 2007 after an abysmal 10-25 record. He bounced around as a position coach, and an interim head coach, before finally landing the LSU gig in late 2016.

And even then there were skeptics.

Plenty of folks thought LSU made a mistake.

I was skeptical at the time. Sure, Coach O did well during two stints as an interim, but could he handle the job full time? Sometimes an interim head coach is able to provide a spark simply because a change has been made. That could’ve easily been the case with Orgeron at USC and LSU.

But it wasn’t.

Coach O is the real deal. And it’s evident after the job that he did this season with LSU football.

However, the reason Coach O is the real deal is because every step of his journey to becoming the Tigers’ head coach was important.

Orgeron wouldn’t be the head coach he is today without the experience of being a head coach at Ole Miss and getting fired. He wouldn’t be the head coach he is today without spending time as the defensive line coach for the New Orleans Saints and the Tennessee Vols. He wouldn’t be who he is today without getting rejected by USC when he deserved the full time head coaching gig (I bet the Trojans really regret that move).

All of those events, combined with the events at LSU (Nick Saban leaving for the NFL in late 2004 and Les Miles’ firing in 2016), made Orgeron the perfect coach at the perfect time.

Orgeron has always seemed destined to be LSU’s head coach. There’s no one better to lead the program than a native of Louisiana.

But Orgeron as the head coach at LSU 15 years ago would’ve ended badly. It probably would’ve ended badly 10 years ago as well.

2016 was the right time for Orgeron to become the Tigers’ head coach.

The perfect coach at the perfect time.

There’s no one on earth better suited to lead LSU right now than Ed Orgeron.

Next. LSU fans try to help out Clemson. dark

Special things happen when the stars align.

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