LSU junior quarterback Danny Etling and interim coach Ed Orgeron didn’t see it coming.
As Etling warmed up on the field before the Tigers romped Southern Miss 45-10 Saturday, the 55-year-old coach asked Etling a revealing question.
“What’s up, scout team quarterback?” Orgeron said to Etling. “Who would’ve thought this would happen a year ago?” the coach added.
Etling, who is from Terre Haute, Indiana, transferred from Purdue University in search of a fresh start and is now LSU’s starting quarterback beside Orgeron, a coach who’s been through the highs and lows and is now the man in charge — on an interim basis — for LSU’s football team.
Orgeron is three weeks deep as head man at LSU, and his staff has already made history.
In his first game versus Missouri, the Tigers tallied 634 yards of total offense — a record against a Southeastern Conference opponent. Orgeron is the first coach in LSU football history to win his first two games by more than 30 points or more.
Orgeron, a former Ole Miss head coach, has “switched up” the culture around LSU’s facility — practices are shorter and themed.
He’s also learned from mishaps and mistakes during his short stint as the Rebels’ coach.
“I tried to change the things that I normally would do as a defensive line coach,” he said. “Those techniques that I used to create some of the best defensive lines in the country did not work as a head coach. But there were applauders of a defensive line coach. I had to get out of that mode and get more into the head coach and delegate and not be the hard butt on the staff.”
Now, everything has come full circle for Orgeron. The Louisiana native is back at LSU where he walked on as a player before eventually leaving the team because he was homesick.
The gauntlet of facing five-straight ranked opponents with a combined record of 26-6, begins with a revisit from his former employer: Ole Miss.
The past is the past, Orgeron said.
His 10-25 record as a Rebel is nothing to reminisce about.
“I don’t have many memories of that place that I want to remember,” the Tigers’ coach said. “I kind of just let it go, and I moved forward, and I’m glad to be an LSU Tiger, I tell you that.”
Fresh off of a seven-year stint at the University of Southern California, the then-43-year-old Orgeron accepted a job as the Rebels’ head coach.
The Orgeron era at Ole Miss abruptly ended after the Rebels lost to in-state rival Mississippi State.
Though, fans — both LSU and Rebel supporters — may remember him for his cameo in the Michael Oher-based football film, “The Blind Side.”
“I had more success in ‘The Blind Side’ than my coaching, so it might be that,” Orgeron quipped.
Current Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze was part of Orgeron’s staff as an assistant athletic director in 2005 and promoted to assistant coach/recruiting coordinator in 2006.
Orgeron gave Freeze his first college coaching opportunity, and Freeze is “forever indebted” to Orgeron and thinks the Rebels fanbase was impatient with Orgeron as head coach.
“People are not patient,” Freeze said. “I really think that we had recruited well under Ed here and it was close to turning a corner. If you look at the athletes that Ed and his staff — our staff — had brought in, we thought we were really close.”
Freeze and Orgeron remained good friends through the years and spoke as recently as last week about how Orgeron has taken a different approach as a head coach.
The matchup with the Rebels isn’t about Orgeron. It’s all about staying undefeated in LSU’s “new season.”
It’s about LSU and its players, Orgeron’s new club.
“Never, never. It’s all about them,” Orgeron said. “That’s the furthest from my mind. This is about the LSU Tigers. This is about this football team. This is about a very good opponent coming into Tigers Stadium. It is a rivalry … That was a long time ago. That’s far from my memory, I promise you.