One Returned to Louisiana

by Chris Paschal

When I was a senior at Wofford College, I wrote a piece for the school paper as a contributing writer. I titled it “They Used to be Gods.” It might have been a bit sacrilegious, but it proved my point. SEC Football coaches used to be larger-than-life characters.

They Used to be Gods

In that piece I wrote about Butch Jones who was watching his Tennessee team collapse after a promising start to the 2016 season. Butch is from Saugatuck, Michigan. He played college football at Ferris State University, located in Big Rapids, Michigan. Big Rapids is about a fourth of the size of Spartanburg, South Carolina. His coaching career started in the Old Northwest. He coached at Central Michigan University, only then to have a brief three-year stint at the University of Cincinnati. In 2013, he was tasked with taking over one of the proudest football programs south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Tennessee and the rest of the SEC used to be coached by legends. And they weren’t from Michigan. They were uniquely Southern. They defended and fought for their schools like they were on a battlefield. They were from Moro Bottom, Arkansas, and Greenville, Texas and Blythe, Georgia.

Their names were mythical. They went by “Bear,” “General,” and “Shug.” And they coached for decades. Bear Bryant, Vince Dooley, Shug Jordan and Johnny Vaught all coached their respective teams for 25 years. Charlie McClendon coached LSU for 18 years. General Neyland coached Tennessee for 21 years. The Head Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier, coached Florida for 12 years and South Carolina for 11.

They built teams that Alabamians and Georgians and Mississippians could believe in. Teams they could be proud of. Not all but many of these people were poor, broken and defeated. While school systems and politicians and elitists held them down, Frank Broyles, R. C. Slocum, Phil Fulmer, Pat Dye and so many others gave them hope.

I concluded that piece for the college newspaper thinking aloud. I asked why there weren’t anymore Southern legends coaching SEC Football teams. Why do people not look to the head coach with the same reverence and awe that they used to? Maybe it’s because things aren’t as bad as they were back then. Maybe it’s because SEC football is not the refuge it used to be. Maybe people don’t really care anymore. Maybe they don’t need a Bear Bryant or a General Neyland.

Not in Baton Rouge.

In Need of a Hero

In Baton Rouge, it was none of these things. In Baton Rouge they were quietly praying. Praying for their chance at glory, their chance at greatness, their chance to be coached by the next legend. They were told Nick Saban was the answer. But that answer left for the NFL. That answer left for a bigger payday. For brighter lights. LSU tried to replace him with an Ohioan, Les Miles. He tried. Damnit, he tried. But eventually it was clear that he wasn’t the answer, either.

In September of 2016, LSU Football was lost. They had just fired Les Miles. Alabama had just won another National Title. Ole Miss had won the previous year’s Magnolia Bowl 38-17. The Tigers were supposed to be competing for a SEC Championship. Instead, they had already been handed two tough losses.

Coaching Search

Names from throughout the country were offered by the national media as the right man to fix LSU. Chip Kelly from the PAC-12/NFL? Brian Kelly from Notre Dame? Jimbo Fisher from the ACC? How about the guys who had SEC experience like Bobby Petrino or Lane Kiffin? What about the rising stars like Tom Herman and Kliff Kingsbury?

LSU had its pick of the litter. And they had some time to decide. In the meantime, LSU still had games to be played. They stuck the defensive line coach in for the time being. Ed Orgeron was the Interim Head Coach. That’s all. Nothing more than that. ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the big network guys wanted an elite guy, a big name, a made man, a game-changing hire for LSU. That’s what this program needed. Another out-of-state hire. It was just a matter of time before that defensive line coach went back to where he belonged.

Orgeron Had His Chance

You see, Ed Orgeron had his chance. A university was stupid enough to give him a shot. Ole Miss hired Ed Orgeron over a decade ago. From 2005-2007, Ole Miss was the runt of the SEC. He inherited a tough situation. It showed. His lack of experience showed. He was a fish out of water. The local media and the national media crucified him. He was an easy target. A barrel-chested Cajun from southern Louisiana who talked funny and who was in way over his head? That’s low hanging fruit.

He was eventually fired. Orgeron would bounce around from team to team. State to state. He was a helluva defensive line coach, don’t mistake that. But when he was named Interim Head Coach at Southern Cal in 2013 it was clear that’s all he was. A placeholder. The Trojan players lobbied for him to remain, but there was no way that could or would happen. Southern Cal would pass on Orgeron. Coach O would take 2014 off before heading to LSU to coach the defensive line.

Coach O Gets His Shot

Interim Head Coach Orgeron finished the 2016 season strong for LSU. It was a cute storyline. That’s all it could be. LSU would hire Jimbo Fisher or Tom Hermann and Coach O would be kicked to the curb just like he had been in Los Angeles.

But things didn’t go as according to plan. Some people weren’t as interested as they had let on. Some people wanted too much money. By the end of things, only one man still had his hand raised asking for that LSU job. Out of necessity, LSU hired Ed Orgeron as its head football coach.

Things didn’t start well for Coach O in 2017. He lost to Troy early in the season. Troy. LSU doesn’t lose to Troy. Who let this imposter lead this team? Many were asking that very question. Dan Wolken of the USA Today wrote an article “Bad Night in Baton Rouge Exposes LSU’s Flawed Hiring of Ed Orgeron.”

“LSU athletics director Joe Alleva got played,” Wolken wrote. “Ed Orgeron. To be the head coach. Of the LSU Tigers. But wait, it gets worse. Not only did Alleva hire Orgeron, he gave him a real SEC contract worth $3.5 million annually.” Wolken would go on to write that “hiring Orgeron [was] ridiculous.”

He’s a rambling, idiotic, incoherent Cajun. That’s what the national media saw. How could Louisiana State not see that?

One Has Returned

But somewhere in Louisiana there was still magic. LSU Football is the closest thing sports has to myth. If you don’t know what I mean, read John Ed Bradley’s It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium. There’s something different about LSU Football. And while Ed Orgeron was the laughing stock of the nation, that magic started to go to work. Orgeron never quit. He had faced adversity in coaching before. He had face adversity in his life before.

Coach Orgeron since that loss has gone 29-5. He’s the head coach of the National Title contending Tigers. He has a quarterback who damn well better win the Heisman. His teams are fast, fun, and electric. Currently, the Tigers are out-recruiting Alabama and Georgia. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t whine to the media. Orgeron knows what being disrespected feels like. “Anybody, anywhere” is the motto for this team. It’s been the motto for Orgeron his whole life.

This past Saturday and throughout these past few months, the SEC saw something it had been missing for a while – one of the South’s favorite sons winning at a Southern school. It hadn’t happened since the turn of the century. Sure coaches from the periphery of the South had won National Titles (Saban from West Virginia and Gene Chizik from outside Tampa, Florida), and sure Gus Malzhan and Kirby Smart and others had won big-time games, but nobody was as mythical as The Bear or The General.

Until now. Holding back tears following the Alabama win, Coach Orgeron told the post-game reporters on the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium that he was so proud to win that game for Louisiana. A Louisiana guy won one of the greatest games in program history for the Louisiana school. He would go on to whip Ole Miss, Arkansas, A&M. He would destroy Georgia to win the SEC Title. That’s what we have been missing. Someone who gave a rip about their school, about their community, about their state. Someone who could be offered millions of dollars by Southern Cal or Ohio State or the NFL and tell them “hell no.” Someone that dreamed about coaching the Tigers.

LSU loves him. His players love him. The state of Louisiana loves him. It seems that their prayers have been answered. They didn’t need a Bear Bryant or a General Neyland. They needed Coach O. He came from the brown water bayous of Southern Louisiana. And one day he will pass and be reduced to nothing but Acadian soil. But for now he walks amongst us. The SEC coaching gods of the past seemed to have been long gone. But one returned to Louisiana.