Ed Orgeron out at LSU after 2021 season
LSU will have a new coach in 2022.
The Tigers will be parting ways with coach Ed Orgeron at the end of the season according to Yahoo Sports' Pete Thamel. The move comes two seasons after LSU won the national title after a 15-0 season.
Can confirm that Ed Orgeron is out at LSU after this season, as @RossDellenger reported. Orgeron is out after 2021, but expected to finish this year on the sideline.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) October 17, 2021
A source familiar with the situation at LSU: “It’s one of those things where no one wanted to be there anymore. The players didn’t want to play for him, the coaches didn’t want to coach for him.”
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) October 17, 2021
LSU announced Orgeron's departure Sunday evening, hours after Thamel and others reported the news.
A Letter from Scott Woodward, LSU's Director of Athletics pic.twitter.com/eVGmqqIRbK
— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) October 17, 2021
LSU beat Florida in a wild 49-42 game on Saturday to move to 4-3 in 2021 as the team is decimated with injuries. But the Tigers have lost to UCLA, Auburn, and Kentucky so far this season and were 5-5 in 2020.
Some regression was expected in Baton Rouge after the Tigers had a record-tying 14 players drafted in the 2020 NFL draft. And passing game coordinator Joe Brady became the offensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers and defensive coordinator Dave Aranda became the head coach at Baylor.
But LSU has taken more than a couple steps back despite stellar recruiting classes on the heels of that national title. Neither the offense or the defense has been nearly as good since that magical season.
Both LSU's 2020 and 2021 classes have ranked No. 4 in Rivals' team rankings though the Tigers have signed just two five-star recruits in each of those classes. Alabama has signed nine in that same two-year span.
There's been off-field turmoil as well. Orgeron is a defendant in a Title IX suit against the school. The suit alleges that Orgeron — the team's defensive line coach at the time — did not report a sexual assault allegation against LSU running back Derrius Guice in 2016. Orgeron has denied the allegations against him. Guice has been accused of multiple cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault and his statistics have been stripped from LSU's record books.
Orgeron 65-44 as a head coach
LSU is Orgeron’s third stop as a college football head coach. He has a record of 49-17 as the Tigers’ coach and 28 of those wins came during 2018 and 2019. Before coaching at LSU, he was the head coach at Ole Miss from 2005-07 and an interim head coach at USC in 2013. The Trojans chose not to retain Orgeron after the season despite a 6-2 record as the team’s coach.
Orgeron became an interim head coach again in 2016 after Les Miles was fired at LSU. After LSU went 6-2 in Orgeron’s interim time he was named the team’s permanent coach and LSU went 9-4 in 2017.
He signed a contract extension at LSU after the 15-0 season in 2019 that made him one of the highest-paid coaches in college football. Orgeron’s 2021 salary of approximately $9 million ranked only second to Alabama’s Nick Saban among all college football coaches.
That salary and LSU’s national status means the job is positioned to be the biggest open position in the offseason.