BATON ROUGE, La. — When you look at the 247 Composite team rankings for 2016, you see that Alabama’s No. 1-rated recruiting class included three 5-star prospects and 14 4-star prospects.

In the same year, the state of Louisiana produced two 5-star prospects and 19 4-star prospects.

In other words, in a decent year, Louisiana produces enough top talent that, with simply Louisiana players alone, a program could, in theory, land a top-rated class.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple. If you wanted a running back last year, Louisiana was pretty thin. No quarterbacks either, unless you count Shea Patterson, who was listed as a Floridian because he played his senior year at IMG Academy.

But at the very least, Louisiana can, and has, provided the foundation of top recruiting classes for LSU for a long time. With an ace recruiter able to keep top in-state players at home and supplement them with top out-of-state talent, LSU should continue to be able to have the elite talent to compete on an annual basis.

When critics of LSU’s hiring of Ed Orgeron rail against a guy who was 10-25 at Ole Miss and was a member of the staff of the coach who was just fired, that’s one of the points that’s missed in the vitriol.

Orgeron was named national recruiter of the year in 2004 while an assistant at USC for Pete Carroll. That honor helped lead him to the Ole Miss job, which, of course, flamed out quickly. And with his roots in Louisiana, that should make him uniquely able to land a bulk of the in-state talent.

And, at the foundation of any coach’s ability to win at LSU, is that coach’s ability to draw the bountiful local talent.

If, with the money saved on his hire, Orgeron is able to consistently hire first-rate coordinators (think the newly-resigned Dave Aranda and, potentially, Lane Kiffin), Orgeron should be able to play to his strengths and provide those coordinators with the talent to do their jobs.

The math should add up to a winner. Right?

Of course, his part of the formula is easier said than done. He said the priority is to keep the home state talent home.

“State of Louisiana first,” he said at his introductory news conference. “One star, two star, three star, four star, five star, any star, I don’t care. We going to get them — if we think they can be an LSU Tiger and they can perform like we want them to, they can perform in the classroom, have a high character, have the skill sets to be a Tiger.”

In that regard, he has a little bit of work cut out for him.

Former coach Les Miles, with recruiting coordinator Frank Wilson, generally did a pretty good job of landing most of the home-grown players LSU wanted.

LSU, unlike most Power 5 conference programs, has no in-state rival from another power conference. And, sure, programs from other states have landed players from Louisiana. But usually, those were players who, despite being highly-regarded, were either not offered by LSU or offered late when a “Plan A” fell through.

Of course, there have been exceptions.

Texas A&M has come into Louisiana and swiped away some pretty good talent over the years. Wide receiver Speedy Noil, who is from New Orleans, just had a big day against the Tigers on Thanksgiving, albeit in a loss. He serves as a good example.

But the big culprit, the one that can and will dive into the bayou and straight-up beat LSU for its most coveted in-state prospects is … you guessed it … Alabama.

Of course, Nick Saban has plenty of Louisiana ties and it doesn’t hurt that Burton Burns, his veteran running backs coach, is from New Orleans. Those ties have helped Alabama consistently pick up Louisiana talent — from the likes of Eddie Lacy and Landon Collins to current stars Cam Robinson and Tim Williams.

How different would it have been if Robinson, the nation’s top-rated tackle prospect in the 2014 recruiting class out of West Monroe, La., would have been anchoring LSU’s offensive line instead of Alabama’s in this year’s 10-0 Alabama win?

At his introductory press conference, Orgeron acknowledged that Alabama has consistently out-recruited LSU in recent seasons.

“Now, we have to recruit better,” he said. “We have to get players that are very similar to the benchmark of this conference (Alabama).”

Alabama, of course, isn’t about to concede anything to Orgeron and his new staff.

Already, Saban has a commitment from the best player from Louisiana this year, linebacker Dylan Moses, who played his senior year at IMG (and is, like Patterson, listed as a Floridian even though he and his family reside in Baton Rouge). Moses committed to LSU in eighth grade but flipped his commitment shortly after LSU fired Miles.

Orgeron has been working that angle hard, but the day after he got the job, Alabama fired another shot across the bow, getting a commitment from the state’s next-best linebacker, Christopher Allen.

So Orgeron has catching up to do. Aside from the players Alabama has pilfered away, he did a good job during the interim period keeping a class currently ranked No. 3 in the nation largely together.

But now’s the time for Orgeron to start flexing his recruiting muscle. It could start with an appeal to Moses. That foundation was laid at the introductory press conference.

“We have identified positions we need to go out and recruit better at, get guys to fill immediate roles,” he said. “Losing (starting linebackers) Kendell Beckwith and Duke Riley, two great players for us, we need to go find guys that can fill those roles, although we have guys on the team that can do a good job. But there are some guys out there we have to go get to help us be better at some positions.”

A day later, Orgeron was on the road doing the thing he does best, recruiting. He landed a commitment from a highly-regarded 2018 safety. He was hitting living rooms and coaches offices.

Meanwhile, Alabama was getting its commitment from Allen.

The battle is on for Orgeron. Nobody LSU could have hired would have come in better equipped to recruit for LSU. But what LSU is recruiting against is a uniquely difficult foe.

Ed Orgeron is better equipped than anyone for the fight, but it doesn’t mean it’s a fight that will be easily won.