Former LSU Football Coach Ed Orgeron Improving From Health Scare

By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

Former LSU head football coach Ed Orgeron is recovering from a health scare that has sidelined him from the Tigers’ practices since mid-August, and he has missed the Tigers’ two games so far this season.

“He’s doing better,” LSU coach Lane Kiffin said at his press conference on Monday. “It was a little bit scary.”

Kiffin hired Orgeron as a special assistant to recruiting and defense last May.

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“I’m not going to get into the details with that, but he’s doing better,” Kiffin said. “He’s still not all the way back.”

Orgeron was seen last week at Mike Anderson’s restaurant in Baton Rouge.

Kiffin was unsure if Orgeron, 65, would be able to join the Tigers on the trip to Ole Miss for the game this weekend. No. 7 LSU (2-0) plays at No. 8 Ole Miss (2-0) at 6:30 p.m. Saturday on ABC.

“We hadn’t got that far yet,” Kiffin said. “He’s here during the day for parts of of it.”

Orgeron was Ole Miss’ head coach from 2005-07 after leaving an assistant coaching position at USC, where he became close friends with Kiffin, a fellow USC assistant at the time. Kiffin left Ole Miss’ head coaching job after the 2025 regular season to become LSU’s coach with Orgeron’s blessing.

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While LSU’s head coach from 2016-21, Orgeron won the Tigers’ only undefeated national championship in the 2019 season at 15-0 after going 9-4 in 2017 and 10-3 in 2018. Orgeron was promoted from defensive line coach to replace Les Miles four games into the 2016 season as interim coach and went 6-2. He was fired effective at the end of the 2021 season after going 5-5 in 2020 before finishing 6-6 in ’21.

The Larose native and former South Lafourche High and Northwestern State lineman left a practice last month when he wasn’t feeling well, Kiffin said.

“He just means a lot to me,” Kiffin said. “We’ve just been through a lot.”

Kiffin and Orgeron were assistant coaches together at USC from 2001 through 2004 when the Trojans won national championships in 2003 and ’04. Orgeron then coached on Kiffin’s staff at Tennessee in 2009 and at USC from 2010-13 under Kiffin and became interim coach in the 2013 season when Kiffin was fired.

Orgeron was LSU’s defensive line coach in 2015 and ’16.

Kiffin has often said he admires Orgeron’s passion.

“And he probably shouldn’t have joked one day when he said, ‘Hey, coach, you know, I’m never going to the hospital. Man, if I did, I’m dying on that field out there,'” Kiffin said. “So, that’s who he is. That’s how he is with everything. And sometimes, that’s not always the best thing to follow.”