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Ed Orgeron discusses importance of LSU win over Florida to Tigers’ recruiting efforts
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
LSU’s victory over Florida on Saturday reverberated across the college football landscape. The most immediate effect was the Gators’ pending ranking in the College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings, as their hopes of qualifying for their 1st Playoff appearance in program history appear to be all but gone.
It provided a lift for the Tigers, of course, as a signature win for last year’s national champions that had struggled mightly in the post-Joe Burrow era. And with the Early Signing Period set for Wednesday, it is sure to provide a further boost to their recruiting efforts as the Tigers’ 2021 class is ranked 4th in the country and 3rd in the SEC (according to 247Sports.com) with a few high-level players potentially still in the mix.
However, a bowl ban the program placed on itself in the wake of an NCAA investigation of improper benefits offered to student-athletes, along with a below-average season, both loom large. That hasn’t done much to dampen the optimism of head coach Ed Orgeron.
“We were on solid ground with most of our recruits before the game, but it does help,” he said, according to the Lafayette (La.) Daily Advertiser. “Recruits can have a short memory – what you did yesterday.”
Orgeron hopes that the impact players from his prior classes have been able to have on the field in relatively short order can carry over as a new crop of players joins the program.
“A lot of those guys (from the 2020 class) are playing already. The sophomores (from 2019) are doing a very good job. For next year, we should have a very strong team – a very strong nucleus with the class we’re going to have this year.”
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
