It’s too early to judge Coach O

It pains me to say this, but the LSU football is not very good.

Sure, they’ll win enough games to get to a bowl game and all of that stuff. But they’re nowhere near the best teams in the country.

They don’t have it this year. It’s really as simple as that.

Personnel wise, I think the Tigers lack the depth of good players needed to make a run.

Think about it.

I don’t know if there is a single position where LSU has elite depth.

Quarterback? It’s getting there. Myles Brennan and Lowell Narcisse are promising young freshmen, but Danny Etling is a fifth-year senior and he doesn’t move the meter much.

At halfback, LSU has two NFL-bound guys, but in some years, they were loaded four or five deep with elite players.

At receiver, LSU is thin – brutally thin. On the offensive line, it’s the same.

On the defensive side of the ball, the problems are at their worst.

On the defensive line, LSU is so beat up by injury and attrition that the Tigers hardly have a rotation of guys able to play in the second half of games. At linebacker, it’s a little better, but not much better. Almost all of the backups are true freshmen and when they have to play, the drop down in quality of play is evident.

At defensive back, LSU is solid – as they tend to be. But at special teams, I’m not sure that the Tigers have a consistent kicker nor punter right now and it surely shows on Saturday nights.

OK, so what exactly am I trying to say?

My point is that it’s far, far too early to grade coach Ed Orgeron’s staying power in Baton Rouge based on how the 2017 season goes for LSU.

In the final few seasons of Les’ Miles’ tenure, the wheels fell off recruiting-wise and the Tigers’ current roster is a bit of a mess because of it.

For years, there were rumors about whether or not Miles would be the team’s coach for the long haul, which sent several players out of the program via transfer. Imagine if LSU still had guys like Trey Quinn, John Diarse and Tyron Johnson – three receivers who transferred out of the program, but are still playing around the country today.

Those guys would all be making a huge difference for the Tigers and would help a struggling offense find the end zone, which would protect an ailing defense.

But transfers and early departures to the NFL Draft aside, the Tigers also were victimized by some poor recruiting in the final years of Miles’ tenure, which is now haunting the team in the 2017 season.

LSU recruiting classes under Miles were always ranked favorable – always in the Top 10 of the country, if not higher.

But Miles had a dirty little secret – especially in the late stages of his tenure. He signed a lot of flashy, four and five-star guys, yet.

But he didn’t always sign quality players at positions of need, which has now left gaping holes on the depth chart.

In the final years under Miles, the Tigers completely abandoned recruiting linebackers and interior defensive linemen.

Guess what?

Those are now two positions where the team is in desperate need of help.

The Tigers also swung and missed on countless quarterbacks, which led to an inept offense that made the team unappealing to recruits at the skill positions.

I’m not just writing this to bash Les Miles. That’s not my purpose.

The purpose of this column is to state that the Tigers just don’t have a quality football team right now and ANY head coach Joe Alleva would have hired would be struggling mightily to make this a competitive squad.

Sure, there are some things on the field that are very, very unattractive and make me have a few lingering doubts about what Orgeron is doing. The penalties are a trainwreck and I think Matt Canada should worry less about shifting and tricking a defense and more on blocking and being physical up-front – playing to the strengths of the LSU roster.

But when evaluating a hire, you have to always look at both the person you picked and also the other people you were considering.

LSU was a three-horse race. If the Tigers didn’t hire Orgeron, they were going to hire either Tom Herman or Jimbo Fisher.

Well guess what? Fisher is 0-2 and his team looks like a mess, despite being a preseason Top 3 pick. Herman is rebuilding at Texas, but he, too, is below .500 and is 1-2.

Coach O is sitting at 3-1 and while the loss was a disaster, I think we have to look back to the past and see that almost all first-year coaches have some hiccups in the early portions of their tenures.

Depth is a serious issue and Orgeron is a recruiting specialist. I don’t expect depth to be an issue for much longer.

The penalties stink, but I think that’s a correctable mistake. And even if it isn’t, it’s not the end of the world. Under Pete Carroll, USC was always among the worst in the nation in penalty yards per game. But they won because they played hard and were super talented.

I’m not saying Orgeron will do to LSU what Carroll did to USC, but I’m just emphasizing that it’s too early for anyone to know.

Let’s let it play out some. We can revisit this a year or so from now. Then, we’ll better be able to track where this ship is headed.

Ed OrgeronJOSE DELGADO | THE TIMES

Follow Casey on Twitter for more. 

https://twitter.com/casey_gisclair