Kiffin and Orgeron: It's not awkward, it's business

Oct. 18—Lane Kiffin and Ed Orgeron are friends, but Saturday they'll try to beat each other's brains out.

It's business.

LSU's heavily rumored separation with Orgeron, just 9-8 since leading the Tigers to the 2019 national championship, was made public Sunday.

Orgeron's departure is not immediate, so the former Ole Miss coach will be on the visiting sideline in Oxford as the LSU coach one last time Saturday afternoon.

Kiffin and Orgeron coached together and developed a relationship at Southern Cal during the Pete Carroll dynasty and later when Kiffin was head coach.

In fact, Orgeron went 6-2 as USC interim coach after Kiffin was fired in 2013.

Three years later Orgeron was a successful interim again, this time at LSU, and that helped him land what is often referred to as the "permanent" job when an interim tag is removed.

Nothing's permanent in the business.

Coaches know this when they sign on, but sometimes the reminders are difficult to swallow.

"It's the profession we've always been in, but now more than ever it's just so much not just what have you done in the last year. It's literally what did you do Saturday?" Kiffin said. "I just had this conversation with another head coach who's struggling a little bit. I just said, 'Hey, every Sunday you're either a good or bad coach based on that Saturday.'"

A former Ole Miss administration made the decision to allow Houston Nutt to coach the final three games after he'd been sacked in 2011.

What followed was the most uninspired football I've seen at Ole Miss.

That's not what I expect to see Saturday from LSU.

The Tigers just knocked off a ranked Florida team.

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Players humbled in a 42-21 loss at Kentucky got a taste of winning against a quality opponent.

LSU players will go hard. The question will be how long will they go hard? Early success for Ole Miss could go a long way in this game.

Orgeron will coach hard because he has some pride, and he's still at his home-state school.

The irony is he has nothing to gain with a win, and his good friend has a lot to lose with a loss.

Kiffin expects a strong effort from Orgeron's team, and Orgeron won't hold hard feelings if Kiffin — who was linked as a possible replacement before Orgeron was fired — takes over in Baton Rouge.

Right now Kiffin's name is just one of many showing up lists of potential candidates as it will with most big jobs.

Kiffin and Orgeron keep in touch not with long phone calls but in the 21st Century fashion of short bursts of text — including one sent to Kiffin from Orgeron after LSU's win over Florida.

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Kiffin said Orgeron's sudden interim status doesn't make this week awkward.

They both understand the business.

"It's crazy. When I see a thing on SEC Network that I walk by, and someone's talking bad about (Nick) Saban after the A&M game as a coach, it just shows you where we're at," Kiffin said.

PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.