Since winning the 2019 National Championship with Joe and the Burreaux boys, LSU football is 9-8. They’re staring down the barrel of a second consecutive unranked season and, if the wheels truly come off, potentially a bowl-less one. If you know anything about LSU football, you know that’s just not good enough.
That’s one reason why Ed Orgeron, AKA Coach O, AKA the Ragin’ Cajun, is out in Baton Rouge, reportedly reaching a separation agreement with LSU that will see him ride out the remainder of the season (and receive his full buyout) before stepping down. The other reason is stories like this, as reported by The Athletic on Sunday.
“It [Orgeron's new bachelor status] created messes for him, like the time Orgeron pulled up to a woman at a gas station wearing exercise attire. “Hey, you look like you work out,” he said, according to multiple sources. “We could work out together.” The woman informed Orgeron she was married and pregnant, to which he responded, “Why does that matter?”
Well, here’s why, Coach …
“That woman was the wife of a high-ranking LSU official. Word of this reached the LSU Board of Supervisors, the collection of prominent Louisiana attorneys and business owners appointed by the governor who make the most important decisions at LSU. And of course, it reached LSU athletic director Scott Woodward.”
Yeeeeikes. Hitting on your boss' boss' pregnant wife at a gas station is as bulletproof a way of getting sh*tcanned as exists in the capitalist world. It’s also potentially the most Coach O thing ever. According to The Athletic, in addition to the on-field product, the womanizing (Orgeron divorced his wife of 23 years in early 2020 shortly after signing a six-year, $42-million extension) has played a key role in Orgeron’s fall from grace, with one player even saying, “It was just a distraction. In 2019, there was no, ‘What’s Coach O doing postgame or Sunday during the day? Is he laying by the pool with a lady?’”
This is just a sliver of a larger pattern of Coach O’s conduct that eventually led LSU football to this point, but there is no denying that it's a splashy sliver. There’s also no denying that the time has come for Louisiana’s prodigal son to leave. The only question now is if he’ll ever return.
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