Orgeron considers Houston home for recruiting purposes

Tigers coach not as effusive when it comes to discussing Fisher’s hiring by rival A&M

The Sabine River, the dividing line between Texas and Louisiana, would be another 150 miles to the west if LSU coach Ed Orgeron had his way.

“We recruit Houston as if it’s an in-state area for us,” Orgeron said Wednesday, prior to speaking to a mostly LSU crowd at a Touchdown Club of Houston event.

Orgeron and the Tigers often have had their way around Houston in recruiting, one more reason why he happily agreed to visit the TD club and share the latest about his program.

“It’s four hours away,” Orgeron said of the nation’s fourthlargest city in proximity to Baton Rouge, La., “and it’s one of the greatest recruiting areas in all of the country.”

Orgeron sounded much like new Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, who a week earlier told this same club that Houston and its surroundings are “one of the best football meccas” in the nation. LSU is the closest thing the Aggies have to a Southeastern Conference rival, although the Tigers hold a 6-0 advantage since A&M joined the SEC in 2012, including the last two victories under Orgeron.

Someone who got away

Kevin Sumlin was fired at A&M in part because he failed to beat LSU. The addition of Fisher, who won a national title at Florida State in 2013, adds a dose of intrigue to the lopsided rivalry. It’s no secret LSU pursued Fisher, a former Tigers offensive coordinator, when Les Miles’ tenure was winding down in the middle of this decade.

LSU and athletic director Joe Alleva failed to lure Fisher from Florida State, and a couple of years later, Fisher wound up at an SEC West foe. Perhaps those are all reasons Orgeron, 15-6 in his brief LSU stint, declined to address questions about A&M’s hire in a powwow with reporters at the JW Marriott in the Galleria.

Asked his history with Fisher, Orgeron simply responded, “Not much history.”

Asked if he was surprised Fisher had made the jump from FSU to A&M and if Orgeron was looking forward to their future meetings in the SEC West, Orgeron said, “(It) has nothing to do with me.”

Others would argue it has plenty to do with him and his future at LSU, considering the Aggies and Tigers meet annually on Thanksgiving weekend. The Tigers are about the same as they were under Miles — decent but perennial losers to Alabama, like much of the rest of the SEC — and Orgeron is under fire after parting ways with failed offensive coordinator Matt Canada in January.

‘A relentless coordinator’

Canada was a heralded hire in December 2016, but the Tigers ranked 76th nationally in scoring offense last season, and he was run off. Orgeron, known for his gravelly voice most comparable to the Cookie Monster, then turned to former offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger to run the show again this year.

“I had to tell him to tell his staff to go home,” Orgeron said of a moment earlier this offseason. “They pretended they went home and went around the block and came back and worked until midnight. He’s a relentless coordinator.”

While Orgeron was stonefaced in response to any Fisher inquiries, minutes later he was hamming it up with a polite but hardly enthusiastic crowd in a ballroom. Alleva, whose job is on the line with the promotion of Orgeron from defensive line coach to head coach at the end of the 2016 season, vowed good times are ahead for the Tigers.

“This football program is in great shape,” Alleva told the gathering.

The Tigers will find out soon enough. They open the season against Miami on Sept. 2 in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, and open SEC play on Sept. 15 at reigning SEC West champ Auburn.