LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron still needs to prove himself. His team should be talented in 2018, but are they good enough to survive this schedule?
Year One of the Ed Orgeron era at LSU was either a disappointment or a success, depending on who you ask, and the time of day you ask them. His first year has been debated, yelled about, praised, and generally run into the ground. A 9-4 season with that roster was probably a disappointment, based on talent alone. His inability to gel with Matt Canada was probably a disappointment too.
On the other hand, however, there are reasonable explanations for those failures. LSU is still in one of the nation’s toughest divisions. The Matt Canada hire was ill-conceived, and made in a rush by a team that was looking for a big name rather than a good fit. It’s easy to find excuses for Orgeron.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. Ten wins felt about right for that LSU team, and they fell one game short. The loss to Notre Dame came down to the wire, as did the embarrassing loss to Troy. Orgeron probably shouldn’t be on the hot seat, but he shouldn’t feel super secure either. It was a tumultuous first year, and we probably can’t learn a ton from it.
Year Two will tell us quite a bit more. LSU has a lot of talent to replace, but their recruiting is still solid, and new offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger seems to fit the team better than Canada. Just ten starters total are back, but there’s some elite talent on both sides of the ball, and a quarterback-receiver transfer duo that could be very good.
If LSU is better, they may not be able to show it though, because this schedule is brutal.