COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Whether LSU’s next permanent head football coach is Houston coach Tom Herman or LSU interim coach Ed Orgeron, chances are Derrius Guice will be their guy.
The sophomore tailback from Catholic High in Baton Rouge did what only three previous backs have done in the tailback heavy history of the Southeastern Conference on Thursday night in the Tigers’ thrilling, 54-39 victory over No. 22 Texas A&M. Guice gained 285 yards after gaining 252 just two weeks ago in a 38-10 win at Arkansas. The only other SEC backs to produce two games of 250 yards or more in their careers were Heisman Trophy winners Bo Jackson and Herschel Walker of Auburn and Georgia, respectively, and Moe Williams of Kentucky.
The 285 yards is LSU’s school record, eclipsing the mark of 284 set by tailback Leonard Fournette just last month in a 38-21 win over Ole Miss. Fournette missed Thursday's game with an ankle injury that has bothered him throughout the season.
“This is a game of inches,” Guice said after the game. “If you don’t wrap me up and secure your tackle, I’m going to get an extra inch.”
In that case, Guice gained 10,260 inches Saturday.
“You see what I can do. You saw it tonight,” Guice said.
If the ongoing contract negotiations in the neighborhood of $6.5 million a year between LSU and Herman result in Herman’s hire in the upcoming day or days, Herman will see Guice run very soon.
“Don’t believe anything you read,” Herman said on ESPN before his team’s game against Memphis on Friday that Memphis won, 48-44, to drop Houston to 9-3 overall and 5-3 on the American Athletic Conference. Herman, 41, has a 36-10 win over then No. 4 Louisville this season, but he also has losses to 8-2 Navy and to 5-6 SMU. He is 22-4 in two seasons in his first head coaching job.
If Herman, a hot commodity whom Texas is also interested in, turns LSU down as did Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher on Wednesday, then Orgeron could end up as the fallback choice. Orgeron met with LSU athletic director Joe Alleva on Friday in Baton Rouge fresh off the Tigers’ largest offensive output in an SEC road game since 1987 at 622 yards. Interim offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger, whom Orgeron selected, also produced the first 300-yard passer and 200-yard runner in the same game in LSU history as quarterback Danny Etling completed 20 of 28 passes for 324 yards and two touchdowns in his best game as a Tiger.
It was Alleva who promoted Orgeron, a journeyman coach who did not have a winning season in three years as Ole Miss’ head coach from 2005-07 but was 6-2 as USC’s interim coach in 2013, from defensive line coach/recruiting coordinator at LSU to interim coach on Sept. 25 after firing Coach Les Miles. Alleva said Orgeron would “audition” for the permanent job at the time.
Orgeron finished that audition Thursday with a 5-2 record and an average margin of victory of 26 points. He did not beat a ranked team, though, losing to No. 1 Alabama, 10-0, and to No. 18 and 12-point underdog Florida, 16-10.
“I just wish we would’ve beat Florida,” Orgeron said. “But we’ve been through some stuff, and we’ve been resilient.”
Orgeron inherited a 2-2 team that entered the season with a preseason ranking of No. 5 in the nation, largely because of 17 returning starters and particularly because of Fournette, who appeared to be running away with the Heisman Trophy in 2015. The Tigers 7-0 start and rise to No. 2 in the polls, though, was followed by a three-game losing streak that ended national championship and Heisman hopes - and got Miles in danger.
Alleva nearly fired Miles last year before the Tigers rebounded to finish 9-3. But then unranked Wisconsin upset No. 5 LSU in the season opener, 16-14, and unranked Auburn defeated the No. 18 Tigers, 18-13, and Miles was gone.
“We were a sinking ship,” Orgeron said. “We got some happy guys in there now. When we took over, they weren’t happy.”
LSU players, many of whom have lobbied for Orgeron to get the permanent job, doused Orgeron with the Gatorade shower after the game and chanted, “Keep Coach O … Keep Coach O.”
They finished 7-4 overall and 5-3 in the SEC and will receive a bid a week from Sunday to possibly the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, on Dec. 30 or the TaxSlayer Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, on Dec. 31.
“I appreciate the way people have supported me,” said Orgeron, 55 and a native of Larose who was an LSU signee out of South Lafourche High in 1979, but quit the team. Almost ever since, his dream has been to be the LSU head coach.
“I’ve never been treated like an interim coach,” he said. “I couldn’t be more appreciative.”
Players hugged him and whispered in his ear after the victory. “They’re my family now. We’re family,” Orgeron said.
“Keep Coach O. You hear it,” LSU linebacker Duke Riley tweeted after the game.
“We were playing tonight for Coach O,” senior center Ethan Pocic said. “We can’t go burn LSU down if that doesn’t happen, but we want Coach O.”
Guice has also campaigned for Orgeron.
“I want Coach O to stay,” he said. “We need somebody like Coach O to lead us out there, and he’s done a great job since he’s been here.”
But then, Guice stumped for Miles last year, too, when it looked like he was going to be fired the week of the Texas A&M game.
“We all got together as a team, and said, ‘We’re playing for him. Without him, we wouldn’t be here,’” Guice said a year ago after gaining 73 yards with a 50-yard run and a 75-yard kickoff return in a 19-7 win over the Aggies. “Every time I got the ball, I just thought about coach. Everything was, ‘Coach, coach, coach,’ every time I touched the ball.”
And Guice would likely run for Herman, too, or Fisher, for that matter.
“He keeps shattering your expectations,” Etling said.
“He is resilient,” Orgeron said. “It was an opportunity for him to bounce back.”
Guice fumbled twice in goal-to-go situations last week in the 16-10 loss to Florida, including the last play of the game from the Florida 1 after he ran the wrong way on the play and into tacklers when the outside was open.
“You can’t let one play (or two) in a game define me because that’s not how I’m built. That’s not the kind of team we are,” Guice said.
“One team, one heartbeat,” Orgeron said.
For one, perhaps fleeting, Thanksgiving, LSU was Orgeron’s team one more time.
