Oregon's Mario Cristobal could take serious look at LSU job
Ed Orgeron and LSU have reached a separation agreement, and with the head coach not returning to LSU for the 2022 season, Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal has emerged as a serious candidate for the LSU job.
Pac-12 college football reporter Jon Wilner tweeted Sunday that Cristobal could very well be lured away from Oregon by LSU, shortly after Bruce Feldman included Cristobal on his list of candidates for the job.
“LSU would be one of the few vacancies worth worrying about if you’re an Oregon fan, to a far greater extent than USC,” Wilner said on Twitter.
Much like Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker and Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher — two other candidates included on Feldman’s list — Cristobal once coached under Nick Saban, a common trait among Power Five head coaches across the country.
Cristobal’s tenure as Saban’s assistant head coach, which spanned from 2013-2016, came while Saban was at Alabama, not LSU. Since then, he’s coached at FIU and Oregon, and Cristobal has done a terrific job recruiting at Oregon. He has a 30-11 record in five seasons with the Ducks, his best year — 2019 — culminating in a 12-2 record and Rose Bowl victory.
Cristobal could look to LSU after Orgeron’s exit
Orgeron’s career at LSU will come to a close after this season, but he will finish the 2021 campaign before he is formally dismissed. After that, Cristobal seems like a logical candidate to potentially fill his void.
Orgeron boasts a 46-17 record in six seasons at the helm of LSU, and he won a national championship in 2019 — a season in which the Tigers finished 15-0 and put together arguably the greatest season in college football history. 21 months later, the two have agreed to part ways. Since the national championship victory over Clemson, Orgeron’s 9-8 record hardly puts him over .500.
Negotiations between Orgeron and LSU began last week, before the Tigers pulled off an unexpected, 49-42 upset over the No. 20 Florida Gators on Saturday.
LSU is expected to pay Orgeron the entirety of his buyout clause, according to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, which is over $17 million; however, a hefty buyout clause shouldn’t change LSU’s spending pattern. Given its history as a top-tier program, LSU is likely to spend plenty to get the head coach of its liking, perhaps luring a coach like Cristobal away from a stable job.
Orgeron arrived at LSU in 2015, serving first as the defensive line coach. After the university fired then-head coach Les Miles, Orgeron was named the Tigers’ interim head coach and finished out the season with a 6-2 record. LSU then removed the interim tag from title in November of 2016, officially naming Orgeron the 32nd full-time head coach.
Orgeron finished the 2016 season with a Citrus Bowl victory, and in 2017, LSU finished with a 9-4 record and lost in the Citrus Bowl. The Tigers showed signs of improvement in 2018, finishing with a 10-3 record and a Fiesta Bowl victory, but his 2019 national championship campaign saw LSU reach new heights.
Led by quarterback Joe Burrow, who won the Heisman Trophy, LSU had its fourth undefeated regular season since the program’s inception in 1893.