LSU Football: Ed Orgeron isn’t worried after loss to UCLA Bruins

LSU football will enter week two with an 0-1 record for the second straight season.

The Tigers dropped their season-opener to the UCLA Bruins this past weekend. It was a tough start to a 2021 season that was supposed to be a bounceback year for LSU.

After going 5-5 in 2020, the Tigers were looking to prove that the program is still a College Football Playoff contender.

Unfortunately, we ended up with more questions than answers after the loss to UCLA.

But despite the tough opening weekend, LSU head coach Ed Orgeron isn’t worried.

In fact, he’s confident that his team’s issues will be fixed.

LSU Football head coach Ed Orgeron isn’t panicking

Coach O talked about LSU’s issues this week and he made it clear that problems the team had against the Bruins are all fixable.

The main reason he has so much confidence?

Because of the effort and leadership the Tigers displayed on Saturday night in Pasadena.

Here’s what Orgeron had to say this week (via 247Sports):

"“When you look at the film, the thing I was the most pleased with was the effort of the players, so the leadership and continuity is there. “Everything else can be fixed, but that’s the most important thing, and they’ve got it. Now it comes down to fundamentals and the details.”"

Orgeron also noted during an appearance on 104.5 in Baton Rouge this week that his team is in “great spirits”

I think there’s still plenty of reason for concern this season — at least until LSU fixes the issues that plagued the program against UCLA.

But I also agree with Orgeron — effort and leadership are the most important qualities for a team.

The issues against UCLA were most likely due to having new coordinators on both sides of the ball. It was inevitable that some problems would need to be worked out (it’s too bad that LSU didn’t open the season against McNeese State and then play UCLA in week two….could’ve been a much different outcome).

The Tigers have two straight “scrimmage games” to get their issues fixed (LSU plays Central Michigan on September 18), before taking on Mississippi State in Starkville on September 25.

The Bulldogs shredded LSU’s defense in 2020. The game against Mississippi State will be a great barometer of how far the defense has come in the first few weeks of the season.