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Thinking Back on the Time LSU Nearly Turned on Ed Orgeron After Tigers' 2017 Home Loss to Troy

By Max Bevington

LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron has had great success with the Bayou Bengals, but it was not always easy for him.
LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron has had great success with the Bayou Bengals, but it was not always easy for him. / Don Juan Moore/Getty Images

Before the dawn of the 2017 college football season, the LSU Tigers announced that interim head coach Ed Orgeron, who filled in the gap after previous head coach Les Miles was fired during the 2016 season, would be the new boss in charge. Many were skeptical about Orgeron's ability to coach a high-level college football team after failing as a head coach at the University of Mississippi from 2005-2007 and getting a lone partial season as the head man at USC in 2013.

The critics seemed to have been proven right five games into the 2017 season after the Bayou Bengals suffered an embarrassing loss to Troy University at Tiger Stadium. The Trojans even took to Twitter to troll LSU after the loss.

With that loss, Orgeron and Co. were sitting at 3-2 with a blowout 37-7 loss on the road against Mississippi State having occurred two games earlier.

The fan base was not happy and it seemed as if Orgeron was destined to fail as head coach of his beloved LSU Tigers just like he did at Ole Miss. Despite the nail appearing to be in the coffin, the Tigers grinded out a big win against Florida on the road in the next game, and finished the season 9-4.

Orgeron managed to survive the 2017 season and then put out a respectable record of 10-3 in 2018, resulting in him coming back last year for his third full season.

As we all know, everything came together for Coach O in 2019, which ended in his squad winning a national championship and capping off an undefeated season in what very well could have been the best start to finish in NCAA Football history.

Looking at it now, with a championship ring on Orgeron's finger, it's crazy to think that his journey at LSU almost never happened because of a loss to Troy.