LSU Football: Rough start could ignite Ed Orgeron’s hot seat

LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron might not be on the hot seat right now, but the temperature is only going to rise throughout the summer.

Ed Orgeron signed a five-year contract following the 2016 season that would keep him in Baton Rouge through the 2021 season — if he makes it that long. Not only is Coach O in danger of not making it through the length of his contract.

It didn’t take more than a few weeks into Oregon’s tenure before fans starting calling for his removal. One upset Tiger fan started a GoFundMe account with the goal of raising $12 Million to buy out Orgeron’s contract. ‘We have to remove Coach O”, the fan wrote, “and thanks to our AD, he has a huge buyout… time to take care of the cajun and protect LSU.”

Oregon might not need an internet campaign to spur the AD’s boot. A rough start to the 2018 season could compound those frustrations and force the administration to admit hiring the Cajun hero was a great story, but not the best football decision.

LSU kicks off the 2018 season against Miami, then starts SEC play two weeks later on the road against Auburn. The Tigers do have the benefit of a home game against Southeastern Louisiana sandwiched between those two, but that’s not going to do much to boost the fan sentiment. And after all, this is the same team that lost to Troy at home last year.

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Expectations are perpetually high in Baton Rouge, and they have plenty of history of less-than-ideal coaching decisions. It wasn’t that long ago that they kept Les Miles after and emotional late-season win over Texas A&M only to fire him early on the next year. Coach Orgeron would be naive to think the same fate was out of the cards for him, making the first few weeks of 2018 incredibly important.