BATON ROUGE, La. — By now you know the boisterous, red-faced, chest-thumping version of LSU coach Ed Orgeron. Everything he does publicly can seem overcaffeinated in that way. The fist pumps. The locker-room speeches. The Red Bull. Even this 5-0 start his team is currently on can feel like something of a sugar rush; there are those who are waiting on the inevitable crash.
But there’s another side of Orgeron that rises barely above a whisper. On Monday afternoon, sitting slouched in a plush brown leather chair, is when the serious side of the gravely voiced Cajun comes through. A trip to Florida is up next, and he’s on edge.
Asked if his team is appears to be playing with more and more confidence each week, he nodded his head slowly in agreement.
“Yeah, more and more,” he said quietly. “The Auburn game gave us big confidence. Look, the Miami game did, too. We went into those games not knowing. We believed, but we didn’t know.
“You don’t know how good your team could be. Now we’re starting to see it.”
He paused for a moment.
“Let me tell you something now: We have some games coming up. These teams are a lot better than the teams we’ve played. We’ve got to play our best ball just to be able to match them.”
It’s “Tell the Truth Monday” and Orgeron is an hour away from a team meeting in which he’ll lay out the good, the bad and the ugly. He’s going to talk about the offensive line and its inability to handle stunts. He’s going to talk about the defensive line’s inability to create pressure. And he’s sure to bring up the 150 rushing yards Ole Miss racked up in what was otherwise a lopsided game this past weekend.
“That pisses us off,” Orgeron said.
And the Rebs’ second-half drives that threatened to cut into LSU’s lead?
“Those are game-saving drives in another game,” he said. “You can’t do that.”
There will be no mention of his team’s 5-0 start today or any day this week.
“I don’t look at it past 5-0,” Orgeron said. “I don’t look at 5-0 being a tremendous feat. You know, I look at that we still have a lot of things — I feel I know this team now and we have to get better. For us to win any game we have to play well, I know that.”
Make no mistake: He’s confident. They’re all confident in Baton Rouge. Ohio State transfer Joe Burrow has become a playmaker at quarterback and the defense is rock solid with a nice supporting cast surrounding stars Devin White and Greedy Williams.
But Orgeron knows what a challenge Florida will be. He knows its coach Dan Mullen has some tricks up his sleeve and acknowledges that their defense under coordinator Todd Grantham is formidable. He watched how it shut down Mississippi State on the road last weekend and came away impressed.
.@SteveSpurrierUF vs. @CoachLesMiles
This is happening. 😂 (📍@DosEquis) pic.twitter.com/UVfzSkDVYK
— ESPN CollegeFootball (@ESPNCFB) October 4, 2018
More important, Orgeron understands just how fragile success can be. He’s not looking backward, but he doesn’t have to look far to see when the preseason coaches poll had his Tigers ranked 24th. The media had them 25th and Orgeron squarely on the hot seat.
It would be easy to get carried away and thump your chest about being the only team in the country with two wins over top-10 teams. But Orgeron isn’t sipping a Red Bull right now. He’s doing the thing that you don’t associate with his persona: He’s calm and reflective ahead.
Everyone wants to look ahead to the next three homes games against No. 2 Georgia, Mississippi State and No. 1 Alabama. Orgeron isn’t taking the tiger bait.
“As a young coach, here’s where I made mistakes: going overboard. This is the game of your life! You can’t do it,” he said. “It’s one game at a time. You can’t make an emphasis of their stadium or The Swamp or the Chomp or the heat; none of that. I keep all that out of my talk. It’s about us improving.”
Is this a prove-it type of game? Absolutely, he says.
But there’s a caveat. There’s perspective.
“Always a benchmark,” he said. “Always. Always. Just like Auburn was. You have to do it again. It’s just a different circumstance now. But that’s the SEC.”
Last season, Orgeron endured a brutal start with losses to Mississippi State and Troy in the first month of the season. So he has seen both sides of this. He understands how finicky September can be.
He could shout about how good LSU is playing right now, how they’re still underestimated, how this isn’t just Alabama’s division anymore. But what good will that do?
He’ll save his energy for when game time comes.