LSU Football: 2017 Season preview and predictions

For the first time in over a decade LSU football has a new head coach. Can Ed Orgeron turn the Tigers into championship contenders in 2017?

The last time an LSU team entered the season with someone other than Nick Saban or Les Miles as their head coach was 1999. That year Gerry DiNardo went 3-8. Now it’s coach Ed Orgeron’s turn. Does he have what it takes to take down the Alabama Crimson Tide and compete in one of the toughest divisions in college football?

LSU was 2-2 when they fired Miles a season ago. After Orgeron took the helm the Tigers finished 6-2. Their two losses came to SEC West Champion Alabama and SEC East Champion Florida by a combined 16 points. Not too shabby for an interim guy.

Orgeron’s final win of the year came in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve. The Tigers obliterated a Louisville team led by Heisman-winning quarterback Lamar Jackson. All of that was enough for the LSU administration to remove the interim tag and appoint Ogeron the full-time coach at LSU entering the 2017 season.

It’s been quite some time since Orgeron held a head coaching job, since 2007 in fact. That was his final year at Ole Miss. In three seasons in Oxford, Orgeron went 10-25. After he was relieved of his duties at Ole Miss, Orgeron would go on to be named the interim coach at USC in 2013 and in 2016 at LSU before taking the head coaching position this winter.

Will the Tigers be clamoring to bring back the Mad Hatter before season’s end? Can Coach O compete for and SEC title? It’s time to look at the roster that Orgeron has to work with in 2017 and make a few predictions.