Coming off of a lopsided loss to Alabama, LSU is facing the balance between finishing this season starting this week against Florida, and looking ahead to 2021 as the Tigers are playing an increasing number of young players.

Coach Ed Orgeron explained at his Monday press conference how he manages that balance, whether the expectation for this season was too high and why he’s bullish on the future.

“Because I’m a competitor and we’re at LSU,” Orgeron said. “It’s hard for me to look at hey, this is what we lost, this is what we don’t have, I always kind of look at what we do have and we have some outstanding freshmen that need to learn how to play.”

The season started well, and LSU averaged about 40 points a game, Orgeron said, then Myles Brennan got hurt.

“There’s been blows throughout the year. But I still think there’s fight,” he said. I still think that we have a great recruiting class. I love the freshman that we have. I think with one or two recruiting classes, we will build a championship team again. I feel like we can do it. I feel like maybe three years ago after we lost to Troy, nobody would have ever predicted that we’d win a national championship and have one of the best football teams in the history of football and we did it, so I do believe we can do it again.”

Orgeron credited the players who have not opted out and decided to finish the season, and competed until the end against a very good Alabama team.

Orgeron also addressed the “re-recruiting” aspect of NFL Draft-eligible juniors coming back to the program next year.

“We’re doing it on a daily basis,” Orgeron said. “Some of them are dead set on going (to the NFL). Some are considering coming back. We want them to come back.”

Orgeron also said that he would consider Max Johnson starting against Florida, and he believes Johnson played his best game against Alabama.