Ed Orgeron visits College GameDay set to preview Florida game, talk Tigers high-powered offense

It’s a busy Saturday for Ed Orgeron. His No. 5 LSU team hosts No. 7 Florida on Saturday night and the Tigers have a number of top recruits on campus. But when ESPN “College GameDay” comes to your city, you make time to visit the set.

Orgeron was asked about the key matchup against the Gators. He kept his answer short and sweet.

“Take care of the football,” Orgeron said. “Win the line of scrimmage.”

The GameDay crew wanted to know all about LSU’s new high-powered offense. Orgeron pointed to two men with Joe, along with acknowledging the offensive coordinator.

“Getting the right coaches,” Orgeron said was the big key to the change this year. “And I think Joe Burrow is one of the top recruits in LSU history. He’s changed the offense. We finally got the quarterback we need. We had the receivers. We have done a great job of recruiting quarterbacks. And the hiring of Joe Brady and the implementation of the spread offense with Steve Ensminger. Steve Ensminger has been phenomenal with this whole process. He is like the general.

“They have changed what people think of this offense.”

Orgeron was asked about when he knew LSU would have a more potent offense.

“Our last scrimmage before our spring game, we had an 80-percent completion ratio against a very good defense and some very good defensive backs,” Coach O said. “I knew we would have a good offense.

“We had to score more points to win a championship. That’s it. I want to bring a championship to Louisiana and I knew we had to score more points. We have the athletes, we need to put them in space and give them the ball and let them make plays, and we are doing it.”

Orgeron has coached at many prominent programs, but the LSU job is clearly the most special to him.

“I have put everything I learned from championship programs and put it into this program,” he said. “We have some of the best talent in the world right here in Louisiana. We can bring the best coaches in here. Why not win it all at LSU? This is the best place in the world to play and watch football.”

As the segment wrapped up, talk turned back to Saturday night’s showdown in Death Valley.

“Better tackling,” Orgeron said was needed to beat Florida. “We worked hard on tackling in the open date. You can see it in our last game. We had 18 missed tackles, which is not very good, and we diminished that to two missed tackles last game.”

Orgeron thinks LSU is ready to win the battle at the line of scrimmage, thanks in part to some key players returning to action.

“We have to play physical up front,” he said. We have Rashard Lawrence coming back. We have Glen Logan coming back. We have K’Lavon Chaisson coming back. We have Michael Divinity coming back.”

Orgeron made sure to end the segment with his usual signoff.

“Go Tigers.”

Andrew Olson

Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.