The LSU football program has been sad and tragic, but it's now laughable.
Coach Ed Orgeron announced this week that his team is so banged up the team can’t even hold the annual “Tiger Bowl” during the bye week. HUH? No, for real. With 85 players on the roster, they cannot find 22 healthy athletes to hold a scrimmage? Just how injured are some of these players?
In the Marines we used say: “Are you hurt or are you injured?” There is a difference. I just wonder, are many of these players hurt or injured?
Hurt means you’re not in the best health, but you can still perform. Injured means you can’t physically do the activity you are asked to perform.
You have to wonder if some of these LSU players have checked out on Coach O to the extent that they do not even want to practice during the bye week.
Yea, I went there. This has never happened in Orgeron’s five seasons at the helm of the LSU football Tigers. NEVER! This is close to unprecedented for a major college football team to be unable to practice because of so many injuries. It’s hard not to laugh at that reality. And, of course, I am laughing, and shaking my head out of disgust and frustration.
We are all aware of the Tigers injury woes, but this harsh scrimmage reality also points out the mismanagement of this roster. Right now LSU has two quarterbacks under scholarship capable of suiting up. Managing the roster always falls on the head coach. Look at Alabama and Nick Saban.
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It is Coach O’s responsibility to put systems in place to ensure players like running back John Emery remain eligible to play. That didn’t happen. Former left tackle Dare Rosenthal couldn’t pass a drug test, so he transferred to Kentucky. That falls at the feet of “Junior,” as Bobby Hebert often calls Coach O. There is not one center on the roster that they recruited out of high school. Liam Shanahan is the only true center and he arrived via the transfer portal.
Let’s not forget the team pushed defensive backs Derek Stingley Jr. and Eli Ricks back from injury too early. Both were injured during the offseason. The team could have, and should have, nursed them back to health carefully. That also falls on Coach O.
The LSU football program has more scholarship kickers than quarterbacks. That is gross mismanagement from the headman.
LSU hired Coach O for his perceived ability to build and maintain a roster capable of winning at a consistent level. From now until the end of the season anything good or bad -- mostly bad -- will happen at the feet of one man, Coach Ed Orgeron.
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The reason LSU can’t even hold a practice is because of Coach O. The reason the Tigers are looking for a new head coach, Ed Orgeron.
Perhaps there is not a single reason more telling as to why now is the time Coach Orgeron must go than the fact that his LSU football team will spend their off week preparing trick or treat costumes rather than practicing.
I know what Coach O is going to be for Halloween - a dead man walking. Happy Halloween Tiger fans. No treat, nothing but tricks.