Lane Kiffin recalls Ed Orgeron’s ‘scary’ stretch away from the LSU program
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Lane Kiffin said on Monday that Ed Orgeron has improved during his time away from LSU, and he declined to describe what put him there. Kiffin was asked about Orgeron’s status in Baton Rouge. Orgeron is doing better, Kiffin said, and is not yet all the way back.
Kiffin called the stretch “a little bit scary” and stopped there, saying he would not get into details. He did share one exchange from before the absence, when he joked with his old friend about the way Orgeron treats his own health. Orgeron told him he was never going to a hospital.
“If I’m dying, I’m dying on that field out there,” Orgeron said.
Kiffin’s point in telling it was that the same refusal to give ground shows up in everything Orgeron does, and that it does not always serve him well.
Eye-opening comments from @LSUfootball@Lane_Kiffin on Ed Orgeron and his health. #LSUpic.twitter.com/MjDqaTDHJI
— Jacques Doucet (@JacquesDoucet) September 14, 2026
Orgeron said last fall, with LSU searching for a replacement for the fired Brian Kelly, that he would “love to” come back to the program and would consider an assistant job under Kiffin. Kiffin took the LSU position in December and hired him in May.
LSU announced Orgeron’s return on May 20 as special assistant to recruiting and defense. The school lists him with the football support staff, one line below general manager Billy Glasscock, and he had been a constant presence since arriving, working LSU’s elite camps, NIL signings and fall camp practices in Baton Rouge.
What LSU loses while Orgeron is off the road
Recent changes to NCAA recruiting rules allow a staffer in his role to go out on the road, which is one of the main reasons Kiffin hired him.
Orgeron is a native of Larose, Louisiana, who spent a career building relationships with high school coaches across the state, and Kiffin’s first LSU class finished No. 1 nationally in ESPN’s rankings for recruits and transfers.
The two go back 26 years to Pete Carroll’s USC staff, where Kiffin took his first college job at 24.
Orgeron went 51-20 across six seasons as LSU’s head coach and won the 2019 national championship with a 15-0 team built around Joe Burrow and widely regarded as one of the best in the sport’s history. The school fired him two years later. He came back to the building about four and a half years after that, in a support role, in the state where he grew up.
Orgeron coached Ole Miss for three seasons before his LSU run, and the Tigers, 2-0 after beating Clemson 51-10 and Louisiana Tech 45-14, play in Oxford on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET, Kiffin’s first trip back since he left the Rebels last December.
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