LSU president F. King Alexander spoke with The Advocate on Wednesday to discuss the firing of longtime football coach Les Miles last week.

Alexander said the decision was made four weeks into the 2016 season so interim coach Ed Orgeron would have a chance to “salvage” the year:

“There was a degree of demoralization that our student-athletes were showing. We just weren’t getting better,” Alexander said. “It was clear that our student-athletes had their concerns, not to mention the fans, not to mention the concerns that kind of spread from last year. (We were told) things would change. And they pretty much stayed the same. We wanted to give our student-athletes and students the opportunity to salvage this year.”

According to the report, Alexander said Coach O has “as much of a chance as anybody” to land the full-time coaching job next season.

Alexander expects the top coaches in the country to be interested in the position in Baton Rouge:

“Knowing what other institutions have … I think some of the best, most talented young coaches would crawl on their hands and knees to come to LSU.”

Coach O and the Tigers are scheduled to play at Florida on Saturday at noon Eastern time, barring a change caused by Hurricane Matthew.