EX-LSU Coach Ed Orgeron Still Owes $8 Million To Former Wife After Divorce Ruling Appeal Fails

GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

The Louisiana Supreme Court voted 4-3 on Thursday to maintain its June ruling in favor of former LSU football coach Ed Orgeron’s ex-wife Kelly to receive half of the $17 million buyout coach Orgeron received when he was fired effective after the 2021 season.

So, Orgeron, 64 and not coaching, owes his ex-wife slightly more than $8 million. Orgeron and his attorney had asked the court to rehear the case and reverse the decision on the grounds that it ignored previous precedents. The Supreme Court said no, and denied Orgeron’s application for a rehearing.

“Kelly could not be more delighted,” Kelly’s attorney Robert Lowe told the Baton Rouge Advocate Thursday. “The original opinion was a proper application of Louisiana’s community property and contract law. Hence, it does no violence to either area of the law, notwithstanding all the hyperbole surrounding it in Mr. Orgeron’s application for a rehearing. Justice was served.”

Orgeron received the $17 million buyout in installments beginning in 2022 from a new contract written after he led LSU to the national championship in the 2019 season with a school-best 15-0 record. He is expected to receive the last portion of the buyout this December.

ED ORGERON ON TIGER RAG RADIO

The former LSU coach said last month that he is getting the itch to return to coaching as he has not coached since leaving LSU following the 2021 season. He appeared on the weekly Tiger Rag Radio Show on Tuesday, Aug. 18.

“I think it’s time. I’m feeling it a little bit,” Orgeron told Tiger Rag Magazine in an interview before the radio show.

Orgeron’s attorneys argued the large buyout sum was for future work, not a reward for the national title, though the new contract materialized only weeks after Orgeron won the national title. His ex-wife’s attorneys argued the new deal was to reward him for the national championship, which virtually always happens after a national title in college football and a championship in other sports. Orgeron filed for divorce shortly after getting the new contract.