LSU Football: Where Ed Orgeron ranks among best college football coaches
By Zach Ragan
LSU football’s Ed Orgeron broke through in 2019 and won his first national championship.
247Sports director of scouting Barton Simmons recently ranked college football’s top coaches and LSU football’s Ed Orgeron was near the top of the list.
Unsurprisingly, Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney came in first and second on the list, respectively. Coach O was listed right behind those two at third.
A year ago, Orgeron was ranked by Simmons outside the top 40, so he made quite a leap.
“Every player seems to love playing for him and every coach seems to love coaching for him and the man can recruit. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that”, said Simmons.
I think this is pretty spot on.
It’s hard to argue against Saban and Swinney being at the top. Saban has won six national championships, including five at Alabama. Swinney has won two of the last four national championships. Those two are clearly the best right now.
But if Coach O can add another title to his resumé in the next couple of years, he could leapfrog Swinney for second on the list.
What Orgeron has accomplished at LSU has been incredible. The Tigers were in a good spot when Coach O took over as the interim head coach in 2016. But there was a reason LSU moved on from Les Miles — the program had grown stagnant.
Orgeron was able to inject some life into the program. And now, LSU is coming off the greatest season in college football history.
The Tigers aren’t show any signs of slowing down, either. LSU is recruiting at an elite level and they’re continuing to evolve offensively and defensively.
2019 might have looked like the peak for the Tigers, but the best could still be on the horizon.