Baton Rouge, La. — LSU arrives in New Orleans Friday evening, now just a few days from Monday’s National Championship game against Clemson. One position to keep an eye on in this game is the quarterbacks– and the showdown of LSU’s Joe Burrow and Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence.
“I think it’s fantastic,” said LSU Head Coach Ed Orgeron. “It goes to show you to play in a championship, you’ve got to have a great quarterback number one. In every championship I’ve been in, we’ve had great quarterbacks. It’s hard to get to the championship without one. I do believe as a fan you look at these two great quarterbacks playing, they’re going to be playing in the NFL for a long time. They’re leading the team. You’ve got to be proud of both of them. They’re both character young men and that’s what college football’s all about.”
For Clemson, this will be the 4th time in the past 5 seasons they’re playing in the College Football Playoff National Championship. They won it last year and in 2016. LSU does not have the experience that Clemson does on this stage, but Orgeron does not think that will be a factor in the outcome of Monday’s game.
“Maybe it could be for them,” Orgeron said. “We haven’t thought about it. We’ve been in all new games this year– SEC Championship, Semifinals. Didn’t phase us. This is not going to phase us at all. I don’t think it is. It may be an advantage. That’s something that I don’t know but I don’t think our guys are going to be phased by it at all.”
If that proves true, and LSU wins their first national title since 2007, it would be a huge milestone in the Coach O era, and really set the tone for LSU teams to come.
“I think once you know how to win it all, you can teach the younger guys, ‘hey this is what we do.'” Orgeron said. “And they buy-in to the program. Our guys are bought-in right now. We break and their eyes are right on me. They’re focused. They’ve bought-in to what we do. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it and the way we do things here our guys are totally bought-in. When this recruiting class comes in, the older guys will teach them the way.”
As Coach O continues to build this LSU program toward sustained greatness, he’s off to a pretty good start, with a record of 39 and 9 as the Tigers’ head coach, with 30 of those wins coming by double figures and 11 over top 10 teams.
