LSU's Big 3 coaches face uncertain times, unpleasant questions
Ed Orgeron coached LSU to the 2019 college football national championship.
Will Wade’s LSU men’s basketball team reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament last month. It was the Tigers’ second NCAA Tournament and third post-season appearance in Wade’s 4 seasons and LSU almost certainly would have been in the 2020 NCAA Tournament had it not been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul Mainieri is the winningest active coach in college baseball, guided LSU to a College World Series title in 2009 and took the Tigers to 4 other CWS appearances.
The three most prominent coaches on the LSU campus have had a lot of success.
But none of the them is in as comfortable a position as the highlights on their résumés would suggest.
In fact, each is faced with significant challenges to get their programs – and their tenures – back on track.
Orgeron’s football team followed its historic 15-0 championship season with a 5-5 flop last season. The Tigers self-imposed a bowl ban amid an NCAA investigation into the football program.
There’s more.
Orgeron is under scrutiny for his role in handling an allegation of sexual harassment against Derrius Guice when Guice was a star running back on Orgeron’s 2017 Tigers team.
A 74-year-old Superdome security guard claims Guice sexually harassed her at a high-school football game and said Orgeron called her after the incident to ask for to forgive Guice, citing his “troubled” childhood.
Her testimony before the Louisiana Senate Select Committee on Women and Children, which is investigating LSU’s alleged mishandling of a series of sexual harassment and assault complaints, contradicted Orgeron’s claim that he never spoke directly to the alleged victim.
The committee invited Orgeron to testify to clarify the contradictory claims. Orgeron submitted a written statement rather than testify in person and reiterated that he never spoke directly to the alleged victim.
LSU has released a recording of a telephone conversation in which a man claiming to represent the security guard asks an athletic department official for an unspecified amount of money.
It’s unclear whether the alleged victim directed the man to seek money from LSU.
The bottom line is that Orgeron is caught up in an extensive scandal that suggests the LSU football program (primarily under the guidance of Orgeron’s predecessor, Les Miles), athletic department and university administration might have tolerated an atmosphere of serial sexual misconduct.
So while Orgeron tries to rebuild the football team in the wake of last season’s drop-off, he also is surrounded by an NCAA investigation and the probe into possible sexual misconduct and a cover-up.
No review of NCAA issues swirling around LSU would be complete without consideration of Wade’s situation.
He seemingly has been twisting in the wind for more than 2 years after being caught on tape by the FBI, apparently offering money to a recruit in violation of NCAA rules.
He was suspended by the university at the end of the Tigers’ 2018-19 SEC regular-season championship run and later agreed to a rewrite of his contract that made it easier for the university to fire him.
But he hasn’t been fired.
Neither, though, has the NCAA completed its investigation.
Three of the top four players from this year’s team – Javonte Smart (the recruit in question in Wade’s taped conversation), Darius Days and Trendon Watford – have declared for the NBA Draft, and Cameron Thomas, the SEC’s leading scorer as a freshman last season, might follow suit.
So Wade needs a significant influx of talented recruits to keep the Tigers’ run going, a challenge that could be a double-edged sword for the program, given his track record.
As for Mainieri, his problem is much simpler: He’s coaching a bad baseball team.
LSU was off to its worst start in SEC play (1-8) in half a century before it routed Kentucky 15-2 in the opener of a weekend series Friday.
The Tigers recently lost ace and prospective first-round pick Jaden Hill to a season-ending elbow injury.
It’s still early in the season, but this could be the worst LSU baseball season since Skip Bertman arrived in 1984.
Still, considering everything that’s swirling around the football and men’s basketball programs, the athletic department and the university – one bad baseball season wouldn’t be that terrible.