	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 22, 2016

Ed Orgeron

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Ole Miss - 21, LSU - 38

COACH ORGERON: A tremendous win for our football team. Just started on Sunday, our coaching staff went out and identified some things that we did not prepare for, did not prepare well against Southern Miss. We didn't start fast.

Tribute our coaching staff and our players for fixing things on a daily basis that we're supposed to. We looked at each other, we had a coaching staff meeting at about 4:30 and the young men did everything we asked them to do this week and it showed in the game.

Tremendous effort by the football team. That was a good football team tonight. It's a good quarterback. We knew they were going to make plays. We had to battle and came out in the first quarter, we had some mistakes. We missed some coverages but we hung tight together -- Dave Aranda, the coaching staff, hung tight together.

We played hard on defense. We caused some turnovers some of them very close, that could have put the game out of hand. They kept on battling. It was great to have Leonard back obviously. I think that he's the best player in America but that's not for me to decide. I'm glad he's on our team.

But it was an overall great team win. We knew we was going to have to play this team for 60 minutes and it was a good win for our team. We're 3-0. We have a bye. We're going to get healed up and have a good week of practice. We have a very good football team coming in two weeks from now and we'll prepare for them.

Q. Have you ever been part of a game like what Leonard had? Have you ever seen a game like that?
COACH ORGERON: I've never been a part of a player like Leonard to be honest with you. But yeah, he's dynamic. I believe he's the best player in the country.

Q. 73-7 in the second half of three games.
COACH ORGERON: Yes.

Q. Why is that happening?
COACH ORGERON: I think it's a tribute of us being fresh, us cutting down on the practices and talking about finishing, us practicing faster and we have good players.

Q. The atmosphere tonight was just amazing for kickoff. What was that like for you, and you can just see it coming out of the players.
COACH ORGERON: Well, it's for the players to be honest with you, and it started with the Tiger Walk. We knew we were going to start fast, didn't look like it, but our guys were really jacked up going in. It was a great atmosphere here.

I want to thank all the former players for being there, all the people in the Tiger Walk, all of the crowd. It looks like it was packed again. It was a definite home-field advantage. We went there last year and they used their home-field advantage to us; we did not play well. And we definitely used the home-field advantage tonight.

Q. We've had a lot of amazing plays but it seems like the biggest reaction is the swing pass, when he ran over that guy, what was your reaction?
COACH ORGERON: Yeah, well, physical. You know, we wanted to be physical tonight. We wanted to out-physical our opponent and that was one of the things. Plus it just looked good. That's one of the things that we love when Leonard does it.

Q. Did you know during the game that he was getting close to a record?
COACH ORGERON: No, I just knew we were up by 17 points and we wanted to win the game. That's all I knew.

Q. The offense has been clicking the past two games and when you bring a guy back into the hold, how much more does that bring to what you're trying to do already?
COACH ORGERON: Confidence, be able to hit the home run and be able to run the game -- run the football in the game. We tried to put him and Guice in at the same time. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't; we wanted to try it. We are best when we can hit the short throws, take deep shots, the ball to the tight ends on crossing routes, protect the quarterback and give Leonard the ball.

Q. Leonard sets the single-game rushing record and he does it on 16 carries. Earlier in the week, did you know he was he's 100 percent and ready to do that, and the amount of yards that he had and the amount of carries.
COACH ORGERON: You know, you can never tell but Monday he looked awfully good when he came back and he was ready to go. He looked fresh and ready, and obviously our offensive line must have blocked tremendously well.

Q. Any defensive adjustment to hold those guys down in the second half?
COACH ORGERON: You know, Dave Aranda is pretty sharp. He makes adjustments when they come off the sideline; he fixes things and not necessarily changes the defense. But he may change out leverage: May play off, may play press, change the technique.

There was a lot of times tonight they were trying to change the play on the line of scrimmage. Once they would change, he would change.

Q. The strategy at the end of the half, instead of going in up eight, throwing the ball, which led to the turnover.
COACH ORGERON: Yeah, we're not going to sit on nothing. We're gone.

Q. The performance of the linebackers, Duke and Kendall.
COACH ORGERON: Outstanding. Outstanding. I love the way they ran sideline to sideline and just spread offensively, got to make tackles in space. I thought they tackled well in space. Again, those guys are playing phenomenal.

Q. You said you left behind what happened at Ole Miss. There has to be some feeling about winning this game, the way that you did, what did you feel?
COACH ORGERON: Absolute zero. This was for the team. We're 3-0. Whatever happened there was a long time ago. I've coached at many other schools and I love being a Tiger. Absolutely zero.

Q. Did J.D. Moore get hurt?
COACH ORGERON: I've got to check. I think he did. I don't know exactly what happened but he was out. He's a tough cat. I don't know what happened to him.

Q. Knee again?
COACH ORGERON: I said I don't know what happened. Sorry. (Laughter).

Q. Getting back to the defense, once they make the adjustment, how tough is it to make their call after their call to get it right?
COACH ORGERON: Well, you have to be very good and you have to have the experience that Dave does. He's a cool cucumber up there now. He's like a mad scientist. But the preparation that he does during the week to be able to do that and be able to get everybody on the same page, because obviously if there's a bust, it could be a touchdown. So he does a tremendous job of preparation. He's a very talented football coach.

Q. When do you move on and focus solely on Alabama?
COACH ORGERON: Oh, we're going to enjoy this win. We're going to go into the office tomorrow, grade the tape, look at it. During the open date, we do self-scout and we're going to do a self-scout on ourselves on Monday. Then Monday afternoon, we're going to start working on Alabama. Tuesday and Wednesday, we're going to have a pretty good Alabama practice and Thursday, we're going to let the boys have a little fun and go home and then we'll come back and be ready to go.

Q. These next two weeks, LSU, Alabama, this point in the schedule, how exciting is it going to be the next two weeks?
COACH ORGERON: Well, after you watch the tape, you might not be as excited. No, I'm just joking. We're going to be very excited to play a very good football team. We're going to be up for the challenge. It's going to be a physical football game. They have very good athletes. They are very well-coached, but so are we.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297