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To folks around college football, he’s one of the best recruiters in the entire sport – a highly sought after free agent coach that’s won championships at top programs around the United States.
But to folks on the marshy plains of south Louisiana, he’s known simply as BaBa (pronounced Bay-Bay) – the good, ol’ bayou boy who has a deep Cajun accent and routinely loves to make a giant, spicy Gumbo for his players.
Now, we can add a third stripe to longtime college football coach and Galliano native Ed Orgeron’s resume: LSU defensive line coach.
LSU coach Les Miles announced last week that he’s hired Orgeron, 53, to his 2015 football staff – a move that was accepted with rave reviews among LSU fans eager to have Orgeron’s recruiting prowess in Baton Rouge.
The South Lafourche High School graduate replaces outgoing defensive line coach Brick Haley, who departs from the staff after six seasons with the team. Orgeron joins the staff of defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, who was also hired this past week after coaching at Alabama last season.
“Ed has done a great job at every coaching stop he’s made,” Miles said. “His teams are always well-prepared, played hard on every snap and fed off the enthusiasm and excitement that he brought to the field. This is a great hire for us, and we’re really excited about Coach O becoming a Tiger.”
With Orgeron on board, the Tigers may be on the verge of becoming a recruiting juggernaut – even more-so than they already are.
Throughout his career, Orgeron has shown an ability to fetch signed scholarships from several of the top prospects in the country.
Orgeron enjoyed two separate stints at USC, serving as the Trojans’ defensive line and recruiting coordinator from both 1998-2004 and 2010-13.
In between those stints, he was Ole Miss’s head coach from 2005-07 and an assistant coach at Tennessee in 2009.
At all of his stops, Orgeron’s efforts helped his employer to ink some of the best players in the country.
In 2011, Scout.com named Orgeron the National Recruiter of the Year. That same year, he was also named the top recruiter in college football by ESPNU and ESPN The Magazine.
He followed that up in 2012 by being named the nation’s No. 2 recruiter, according to rankings compiled by Sporting News.
For his full body of work over the past decade, Rivals.com named Orgeron the No. 2 recruiter in the country in the 10-year stretch spanning from 2002-11.
In his first stint at USC, Orgeron was instrumental in bringing Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush to Los Angeles. The Trojans signed three-straight Top 5 recruiting classes from 2002-04.
In his second stint, he helped to rebuild a program on probation, helping to turn them back into a national power.
Orgeron said the ascent to LSU marks a full-circle point for his career. He briefly played for the Tigers when he was in college, and touted that he’s always wanted to coach the “premiere university in Louisiana.”
“I look forward to being able to coach these young men, to develop them and to get them to the great defensive lines that we’re used to seeing at LSU,” Orgeron said. “(I want) to go out and recruit the great state of Louisiana. I can’t wait to go out tomorrow and recruit with that big LSU on my chest. Man, I just can’t wait to do it.”
Orgeron has already done just that.
According to multiple reports by recruiting services, Orgeron has made several in-house visits with recruits and has secured official visits with several of the top recruits in the Southeast. Together with Steele and LSU Recruiting Coordinator Frank Wilson, Orgeron said he feels like LSU can haul in all of the top names, if given the opportunity to get recruits on campus.
“I went through a two-hour meeting with Frank Wilson,” Orgeron said. “That’s the best recruiting meeting I’ve ever seen. It was (detail) oriented and very knowledgeable. … He loves LSU, so I’m just looking forward to being part of that and working with him. I’m proud to say that he and I are very close.”
STEELE NAMED
LSU D. COORDINATOR
The night before Orgeron’s hiring was made official, Miles announced the Tigers had named veteran coach Kevin Steele to be the team’s new defensive coordinator.
Steele lands at LSU after two years at the University of Alabama – one serving as a consultant and another as a linebackers’ coach.
Throughout his 30-plus-year career, Steele, 56, has worked for a who’s who of top-notch college football programs like Tennessee, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Baylor, Florida State, Alabama and Clemson.
He last was a defensive coordinator at Clemson from 2009-12, helping lead the ACC’s Tigers to the 2011 conference championship – the university’s first since 1991.
“This is a great hire for us,” Miles said. “Kevin has had a very successful coaching career, one that has seen him coach alongside some of the top coaches in our game. He won a national title with Tom Osborne at Nebraska, coached with Bobby Bowden at Florida State and coached in the NFL with one of the great defensive coaches in Dom Capers.”
Like Orgeron, Steele is also a tenacious recruiter.
During his 30 years in the college game, Steele helped orchestrate some of the top recruiting classes in the country. Last year at Alabama, the Crimson Tide earned the No. 1 recruiting class in America – in large part because of Steele’s ability to lure players from around the country to Tuscaloosa.
At Florida State, Steele had the same level of success. In 2005, he was named the National Recruiter of the Year by Rivals.com.
With Steele, Orgeron and current LSU recruiting coordinator Frank Wilson now on-staff, the Tigers are the only college football program in America to have three coaches who have earned Recruiter of the Year honors in their college coaching careers.
South Lafourche High School graduate Ed “Ba-Ba” Orgeron talks to players during a game with USC in the 2013 season. The former Tarpon agreed to a deal to become LSU’s new defensive line coach.
