Tuesdays with Ed: Ole Miss

Ed Orgeron had his weekly meeting with the media to recap a massive win over the Florida Gators before looking ahead to both Early Signing Day and LSU’s finale against Ole Miss.

“Outstanding effort,” Orgeron said. “I was so proud of our football team, the leadership and the older guys that stuck around and stayed. I’m so proud of the younger guys that stepped up, played very well. I’m proud of our coaching staff for blocking out the noise last week and had a tremendous week of preparation.”

A depleted LSU team had to rely on most of its underclassmen to pull off the upset over the then No. 6 ranked Gators. There were 48 players that took the field Saturday night, and 26 were freshmen or sophomores.

“Every point scored on that field was by a freshman or sophomore,” Orgeron noted. “A lot of young guys playing. A lot of next-man-up. Great job by Corey Raymond and Bill Busch getting these guys to play the defensive back field hadn’t played very much.”

After basking in Saturday’s win, Orgeron talked about this week’s opponents, the Ole Miss Rebels. Orgeron praised the job Lane Kiffin has done and called him “one of the best offensive minds” in football.

Orgeron noted that currently he has “54 guys available or something like that” for the Ole Miss game. If that’s the case, LSU will have just enough scholarship athletes to compete as required by the SEC.

The biggest topic of discussion wasn’t Saturday’s game, but on the start of the early signing period. Orgeron said he expects at least 15 to 16 players to sign, and 20 at the most. Orgeron also felt Saturday’s win over Florida helped with LSU’s momentum heading into signing day.

“I think it was huge. I think it’s reassurance,” Orgeron said. “But, you know, they’ve been seeing the whole time all the freshmen were playing, all the players that we lost. So I think the game had a lot to do with giving us some momentum this week, but we were on solid ground with most of our recruits before this game.”