Win or lose in the Fiesta Bowl, LSU’s season a success

The vultures have been flying high in the sky above the LSU football facility for the past two seasons — ready to pick apart the bones of coach Ed Orgeron.

Orgeron wasn’t an overly popular hire from a lot of LSU fans. Some in the fan base were never willing to give him a chance, instead making every, single excuse in the world for why he was going to fail in Baton Rouge — despite evidence as an interim coach that would have heavily indicated otherwise.

But the conquests of the vultures has never produced fruit.

They fly high in the sky in search of failure, but they can never find it.

Orgeron’s first season at LSU was decent — not good, not great.

But with another season to implement his system, the Tigers’ 2018 ride was an unquestioned success. And next fall, with a talented batch of returnees back on both sides of the ball and a little bit of a lighter schedule, it just might be time to consider the Tigers one of the favorites to make the College Football Playoff.

LSU’s 2018 season was a success story — no matter what happens in the bowl game against UCF.

Sure, winning that game and earning a 10th victory and a Top 10 finish would be amazing. But let’s consider what national expectations were for the Tigers before we question my above-listed statement.

Folks may forget, but LSU was picked to be a .500 football team this fall. Some experts thought they’d win 6 games.

Others said 7 was the max the Tigers would get. Las Vegas agreed. LSU’s over/under win total this season was 7 games — the lowest it’s been in more than a decade and a half.

They had their reasons. Some of them even made a little sense.

The Tigers lost their starting quarterback, top two running backs, a slew of receivers and top-flight offensive linemen off last fall’s team. Oh yeah, and they lost a coordinator — albeit a somewhat overrated one in Matt Canada.

Defensively, LSU also lost several starters up front and had to replace both starting cornerbacks, which is never an easy feat.

Oh yeah — and the Tigers had the most difficult schedule in the country, facing bowl teams Miami and Louisiana Tech in the non-conference and also Florida and Georgia as their SEC Eastern Division opponent.

But the Tigers surprised all the critics and showed some muster, winning 9 games (got robbed of one more by coward officials) and earned a spot in the New Year’s Six.

Along the way, they beat Miami, Auburn, Georgia (in the college football playoff), Mississippi State, Ole Miss and other conference rivals. The losses were to Alabama and at Florida and Texas A&M. The Alabama game was never close, but the latter two games could have gone either way.

But more important than the win/loss record is the fact that now, we sort of see a path for the future for the Tigers as Orgeron earns his stripes in the SEC.

Joe Burrow is a good quarterback under center for LSU. I love watching that guy play. He’s one of the toughest LSU players of my lifetime. He is far from perfect, but he fights like heck to win. Having him for another year will be amazing.

The Tigers also will return Clyde Edwards-Helaire, all of its receivers and fourth-fifths of its offensive line. LSU should be explosive and electric on offense next fall. If they’re not, then it’s time to look at coordinator Steve Ensminger. But as it stands right now, I think Steve is doing an excellent job with the limited, youthful personnel he’s had available.

Defensively, the Tigers will lose some pieces, no doubt. But Dave Aranda has some talent in the cupboard and a good scheme. With the money LSU is dedicating to its defensive coaching staff, the Tigers sure better field a competitive defensive unit each fall and I sure think they’re going to again in 2018 — even if they’re without Greedy Williams and Devin White.

Safety Grant Delpit is pound-for-pound the best LSU defensive player I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. He has the ball-hawking of a Honey Badger, but the coverage skills of a Patrick Peterson. I sure wish I was that guy’s agent, because he’s going to make truck loads of money at the next level. Guys who have the speed of a cornerback, but the tackling of a linebacker are invaluable in today’s world of professional football.

And luckily for LSU, the Tigers have several others with Delpit-level talent coming in the future.

The biggest reason why I am such a strong-willed Orgeron supporter is his recruiting. In his time at LSU, Orgeron has not necessarily pulled Top 3 classes in the country in his recruiting efforts, but to me, he’s done better than that: he’s filled LSU’s needs.

The Tigers desperately need better play at the line of scrimmage. LSU’s last class had gobs of linemen who will filter through the program’s depth chart in the next several seasons. Orgeron also needed a kicker last offseason and got the best one in the country.

In this class, the Tigers needed running backs and they got the best one in the country in John Emery. There was also a need for skill and size and the Tigers got lots of both.

If you have the best players and an elite scheme, you can do a lot of things.

LSU was supposed to struggle in 2018, then rebound in 2019.

But they had success in 2018 and now the path is paved for 2019 to possibly be a special season.

And I can’t wait to see it unfold — no matter what happens in the bowl game.

But by the way, I like LSU by two touchdowns over UCF — for what it’s worth.

Ed OrgeronLSU SPORTS INFORMATION

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