All college football teams have people who help define eras, both from within and without. Steve Spurrier is synonymous with UF in the 1990s, but his story is intertwined with the greats and not-so-greats ranging from Bobby Bowden to Phillip Fulmer to Ray Goff.
In the last half-dozen years, Ed Orgeron has been as big a factor as any in the story of Gator football among those not wearing orange and blue.
Few things have fired up a pair of fan bases like the Hurricane Matthew situation did for Florida and LSU in 2016. In some quarters, tempers still flare over it; some feelings are still raw.
Orgeron mainly kept to coachspeak while the schools’ ADs sniped at each other publicly and still-new SEC commissioner Greg Sankey didn’t step in with a strong hand. However, Coach O was still in the middle of all of it. And, when the rescheduled game did happen, the teams played a 16-10 classic in which UF made three goal line stands and won in large part due to a 98-yard touchdown pass from a backup quarterback to a true freshman.
In 2017, LSU delivered the first of a pair of close losses at midseason that turned up the pressure so high on Jim McElwain that he cracked and made up a story about death threats. It was a 17-16 thriller of sorts, and Eddy Pineiro’s first-ever missed PAT made up the final margin.
The 2018 game looked like it was on its way to a second-consecutive one-point final when Brad Stewart made the Swamp explode with a pick-six to seal the victory. The Tigers were ranked No. 5 on game day and finished in the top ten, providing the first big win of the Dan Mullen era in Gainesville. Only with the bowl win over Michigan did Mullen add a second victory over a team that would finish in the season’s final AP Poll.
LSU caught lightning in a bottle in 2019, and so it provided Mullen his first opportunity to prove he could hang with an elite team. Hang the Gators did. It took late UF drives concluding in an end zone pick and a turnover on downs inside the 10-yard-line for LSU to take a lead larger than one touchdown. UF ably traded blows for three-and-a-half quarters, showing glimpses that greatness could be within the grasp of Mullen and Kyle Trask.
Then last year’s contest was a defining game of the Mullen era for all the wrong reasons. LSU came into Gainesville a heavy underdog with injuries, opt-outs, and COVID protocols removing a large number of key Tigers from the game. UF played like it was already thinking about the SEC Championship Game the following week. A million quick slants were hit. The fog rolled in. A shoe was thrown. Mullen picked up a loss without which a decent amount of the angst of this year wouldn’t exist.
Sitting at 3-3 with Florida, Ole Miss, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas A&M still left to go, Orgeron is in a deep hole with little to suggest he’ll get out of it. When you’re the head coach at LSU, having Kentucky drop a train on you is not going to sit well. It especially won’t after you get bullied by UCLA and let Bo Nix actually turn his Yakety Sax routine into a win.
The murderous slate ahead could theoretically offer Coach O a chance to keep his job via winning. However a frightful number of players sidelined by various maladies means he’ll have to attempt to do it with both arms tied behind his back.
Orgeron is a good foil to Mullen. He comes from the defensive side and is a better recruiter than anything else. He’s never been known for tactical acuity. He is willing to fire assistants promptly if they’re underperforming.
He’s had plenty of chances to prove that last fact in Baton Rouge, though, because he keeps hiring so many underperformers. His latest gambit was to try to recreate the 2019 magic by hiring coordinators who had worked with Joe Brady and Dave Aranda for one year apiece. OC Jake Peetz is a first-time coordinator and on game day doesn’t have an old hand guiding him like Brady had in Steve Ensminger. DC Daronte Jones last was a coordinator at DII Bowie State in 2009. Turns out having two green coordinators isn’t great when the head coach isn’t a big Xs and Os guy.
Florida should win the game this year. Of course they should’ve won last year too, so that’s why they play the games.
Still, it’s hard to point to anything LSU does well outside of its passing offense. Max Johnson is progressing after flashing potential last year, but he has now lost by far his best target in Kayshon Boutte for the season. Their offensive line is mediocre, and as a result their rushing attack is truly terrible. The Tiger defense let UCLA and Kentucky each to gain well over seven yards per play, almost gave away the Mississippi State game, and allowed more yards to Auburn than Georgia State did.
If the Gators take care of business, Oregeron’s fate will be all but sealed. I can only guess at the inner workings of institutions within the state of Louisiana, but the AD who took the interim tag off of Coach O is now the “special assistant to the president for donor relations”.
Maybe Coach O will be gone Sunday. Maybe it’ll take a firebombing from Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss the following week. Or maybe he’ll pull another rabbit out of his haut-de-forme, take down the Gators again, and live to fight past his team’s open date.
Odds are that the Orgeron era at LSU will soon end, though, and with it so will the era of him being a major adversary to Florida. With Tennessee and FSU stumbling from one bad hire to the next and Georgia ascending to the elite plane, LSU has been the annual opponent consistently around Florida’s level since 2016. The teams have delivered memorable game after memorable game, and Coach O helped make that happen. Alas, nothing lasts forever, mon ami.