What Lincoln Riley, Ed Orgeron said in final Peach Bowl press conference

The talking is finally over. Here is what Lincoln Riley and Ed Orgeron said in final Peach Bowl press conference

On Jalen Hurts difference from when LSU played him before:

ED ORGERON: Well, obviously, he was a young player when we played him. They’re doing more things with him. He’s the leader of this football team. He looks like — to me, he’s the heart and soul of this football team. I have to commend him, going into a new situation and obviously have won it over by, I’m assuming, the way he works. Knowing him and his character and what he’s done, working with Coach Riley, I think that those guys have a tremendous system, a tremendous program. He’s very smart. He’s very difficult to stop. I’m going to tell you what. The scheme makes it tough. And those guys got more — they block more people in the box than you have, and then they have CeeDee Lamb sitting out there.

Very difficult scheme. They know how to call the right plays. But he runs the ball like a big tailback back there and also throws the ball well and also has come back from a deficit to lead his team to victory. I do believe he’s a great leader.

On representing the Big 12:

LR: I do think it’s a chance to represent your league. I wouldn’t shy away from that. I think you are, but I don’t think this is necessarily about the Big 12 versus the SEC or anything else.

So I don’t know. Maybe I’m straddling the fence there, but I do see it as a chance to represent your league, certainly. Now, this matchup is about Oklahoma and LSU, and that’s certainly what it’s going to come down to.

But these are big stages. I think it’s great representing your league, just getting here because, obviously, with the current format, not every league is going to be represented in the College Football Playoff.

So we’re excited to be here and excited to play our best.

On LSU being focused after successful year:

EO: You know, you hear about guys winning the Heisman and how they’re going to play after and all that stuff. We made sure that Joe’s rested. We made sure that we have blocked off all the noise. We haven’t talked about any individual awards, accomplishments in our meetings.

So I think we’ve left that stuff behind, and we haven’t talked about the pressures of the playoff game or nothing like this. We’ve approached this game just like any other game.

The only thing I’ve told them, we’ve come to a playoff game, not a Bowl. I do believe we’re going to play loose if it’s any indication of the way they’ve been all week. They’ve been loose all week. They’ve had great practices. I don’t think the pressure of a big-time game is going to get to these guys.

They have great leadership. But we’ll see. You never can tell until the game comes.

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