No hype needed for Tigers and Longhorns

It’s rare when you have to lean forward to hear Ed Orgeron speak when he’s 10 feet from you.

Because usually, you can pick up the Tigers’ head coach from a couple of football fields away.

But it was obvious at his Thursday media opportunity he was tired of answering questions about Saturday’s game for the No. 6 ranked Tigers at No. 9 Texas.

Frankly, the media was tired of asking them.

Because the hype level for this game – as reflected by the ticket prices on the secondary market making the matchup this season’s toughest non-conference game ticket to acquire – spun out of control long ago.

In 2014 when the Tigers and the Longhorns agreed to this two-game series (next year's game is in Tiger Stadium), the basic reaction from the LSU fan base was it’s going to be fun to party and watch the Tigers in a new locale.

But since Nov. 26, 2016 when Orgeron was named head coach just hours after the Tigers’ first choice Tom Herman chose to pursue the Texas vacancy, this first regular-season meeting between teams has a narrative that has grown larger than life.

A year ago, the so-called national college football experts weren’t convinced that Orgeron wouldn’t be around this season to coach.

Unlike Herman, who was offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer at Ohio State before becoming the hottest young head coach in the nation when he was 22-5 in two seasons at Houston, Orgeron has had to fight the stigma of being a consolation prize hire.

Because of his failure from 2005 to 2007 at Ole Miss in his first experience as a head coach when he was fired after just three seasons, Orgeron carried the albatross of looking like someone who had no clue how to be a head coach.

He didn’t. He really didn’t.

Orgeron will be the first to tell you everything he did wrong, which led me to write the day he was hired by LSU as head coach that he may not be the hot coach du jour (which was Herman) but he might be the right coach because he already recognized his past mistakes.

Just like at the end of his first full season in charge of the Tigers in 2017.

It was a 9-4 rollercoaster with the losses (37-7 at Mississippi State in the SEC opener, the 24-21 stunner at home to Troy, a 24-10 defeat at Alabama and 21-17 last-minute Citrus Bowl loss to Notre Dame) being remembered more than the wins.

When he fired one-year only offensive coordinator Matt Canada after the Citrus Bowl loss, Orgeron was portrayed by the media (including me) as indecisive. It conjured memories of his Ole Miss train wreck.

But there’s one thing about Orgeron’s second shot at being a head coach that repeatedly shines through. Whenever he sees a weakness or feels something needs to improve, he recognizes it and attacks the problem.

Like in May 2018 when he put the hard-sell on Ohio State graduate transfer Joe Burrow, who will make his 15th straight start Saturday as the Tigers’ quarterback.

Or after last season when Orgeron knew LSU had to enter the uptempo spread offense era of college football for the Tigers to have a fighting chance to win a national title. So, he hired Saints assistant Joe Brady, a spread offense whiz kid.

The entire narrative this past week, aside from the silly LSU-Texas DBU snit, is the thought an LSU win will validate the fact that the Tigers made the correct hire in Orgeron.

That’s as ridiculous as those who compare the records of Orgeron (26-9 at LSU) and Herman (17-10 at Texas) and automatically declare Orgeron as the better coach while ignoring the fact Herman took over a program coming off three straight losing seasons.

“We all believe in Coach O and I try not to get into all that head coaching stuff,” Tigers’ center Lloyd Cushenberry said. “He’s all for LSU, all for us, he’s from Louisiana, he wants to be here his whole career. We couldn’t ask for a better coach than Coach O. We love him. He always has our back and we’re always going to have his no matter what.”

Three-fourths of the battle in creating a winning culture is players buying in fully to what a head coach is selling.

From the first few weeks when Orgeron took over as interim coach when Les Miles was fired after the fourth game of the 2016 season, Tigers’ players have consistently said the same thing about their Cajun-born and raised leader.

“He’s a player’s coach,” LSU defensive end Rashard Lawrence said. “Every Saturday now we’re out there having fun. Good, bad, and indifferent, whatever happens we’ve got a group that really cares for each other and we’ve got a coach doing the right things on a daily basis.

“He communicates with us. When he sees guys with nicks and bruises, he understands and will cut down practice by 15 to 20 minutes. He’s always got an open office. If you’ve got a question or concern, you can go in and he’ll shoot you straight.”

Orgeron’s message to his team this week is something they’ve taken to heart – don’t make the game so big that the pressure swallows you.

“The team feels this game is bigger on the outside (of LSU’s locker room) than it is inside,” said Texas-born LSU outside linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson. “Whether we get the results we want or not, it’s not going to make or break our season. I told our guys we’re going to face talent that is equal or better on our schedule. That’s not a shot at them (Texas). We know we’re going up against a championship contending team.

“We know inside what we’re capable of and we feel like we know how the game is going to go. We have to do everything right on our end to make it go the way we expect it to go.

“It’s for outsiders to hype up the game and get what they want. At the end of the day (on the field), it’s going to be mano y mano.”

Not to prove which school made the better coaching hire.

Or to decide which program is the real DBU, because that also happens annually when LSU plays Florida.

The Tigers and the Longhorns, two of college football’s tradition-rich programs playing for just the third time in 66 years, need no hype.

Especially when it’s the only game during the College Football Playoff era that began in 2014 that an SEC team is part of a home-and-home series (not including neutral-site games) in which both teams are ranked in the top 10.