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Reading into the tea leaves, it’s safe to assume LSU head football coach Ed Orgeron is coaching for his job over the next six games as the Tigers will try to improve their 3-3 record starting Saturday against Florida.
Orgeron has been in the headlines as a head coach who could possibly be out of a job for a few weeks now, and with a high profile job like at LSU, members of the national media are understandably talking about the prospect of LSU making a change.
SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum said this week that it will be “virtually impossible” for Orgeron to keep his job, mainly because of the daunting schedule left for the Tigers.
“The problem for Ed Orgeron is the schedule,” Finebaum said. “Going into Saturday night, of the next five games, that was possibly the easiest win. They have Florida this weekend. He has Ole Miss, Arkansas, Alabama, and then there is Texas A&M at the end.”
The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman — who keeps a rolling list of hot seats for coaches in college football — wrote this week that Orgeron is in “deep trouble.”
“Orgeron knows the situation there and that he’s working for an athletic director who didn’t hire him and who loves to make splashy hires. Scott Woodward hired Chris Petersen at Washington and got Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M. Does Woodward try and court Fisher to come back to Baton Rouge? Fisher’s stock just shot up after knocking off Nick Saban last week. Would Fisher want to make that move?
Barring a dramatic turnaround in the next few weeks against many good teams, LSU is headed for a coaching change. The uphill climb looks much steeper now than it did a week ago.”
Feldman called Orgeron’s seat “scorching.”
Dan Wolken of USA TODAY Sports is also predicting Orgeron’s days are numbered:
“The team that catapulted you to the mountaintop is long gone. And your own fans have had enough of how you squandered the momentum from 2019 and brought LSU to a level of mediocrity we haven’t seen in more than a decade.
After LSU’s 42-21 loss to Kentucky, dropping the Tigers to 3-3, this is all now academic. Orgeron is almost certainly going to join former Auburn coach Gene Chizik in getting fired just two years after winning the national title, and the only question is when and how.”
Wolken cited Orgeron’s “temperament, his penchant to meddle in areas where he has no expertise, and his hot-and-cold relationship with a bevy of assistant coaches” as just a few ways Orgeron’s coaching style is “ill-suited to success at this level.”
The Advocate’s Scott Rabalais wrote this week that Orgeron’s recent public comments — whether it was when he called out a UCLA fan’s “sissy blue shirt” or his “kneejerk reaction to an immature troll on his radio show last Wednesday night” — are exchanges that would have been accepted or even encouraged during the national championship run. Now those comments don’t sit the same:
“Orgeron’s dismissal appears inevitable. Halfway through this season, LSU is not progressing and injuries are mounting — superstar wide receiver Kayshon Boutte sadly will miss the rest of the season after suffering an ankle injury at Kentucky. There is an argument that it is better to rip off the bandage as soon and as quickly as possible.
That said, Orgeron still has a mathematical chance to pull out the kind of season — probably going at least 8-4 — to save his job.”