LSU Football Officially Making the Switch to a 4-3 Defense, Orgeron Talks Passing Game Coordinator Search
Of the many revelations to come out of coach Ed Orgeron's first press conference since LSU won its fourth national championship, his statement that LSU would indeed be switching to a 4-3 defensive scheme was the most important.
After years of Dave Aranda using a 3-4 defensive scheme, Orgeron started to maneuver towards a 4-3 line of thinking when Aranda started getting serious interest for head coaching jobs. When Aranda officially left the program to take the head coaching job at Baylor, one name stood out to Orgeron above all the rest as a potential replacement, Bo Pelini.
One mentor he called upon when making the decision to hire Pelini was current Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll. Carroll worked with both Orgeron and Pelini throughout his time as a collegiate coach and Orgeron said Carroll thought Pelini was the best defensive mind he had ever been around.
"He's already made an impact," Orgeron said of Pelini. "His first meeting yesterday with the players was phenomenal. He brought a lot of energy, he set the tempo. He does a great job taking control of the defensive meetings."
Pelini inked a three-year, $2.3 million contract just last week and Orgeron said Pelini was somebody he always wanted to work with because he respects his coaching style and the results his defenses get.
"The year I was off, I was thinking of going to Nebraska and he and I got along well," Orgeron said. "I said 'you know what, this is the kinda coach I like being around' and obviously Bo's been here at LSU before. He left here with a great mark, he had two of the top defenses in the SEC and the players loved him."
Orgeron described the 4-3 as an "attack defense" meant to get after and apply consistent pressure to the quarterback. With LSU bringing in six defensive linemen to its 2020 recruiting class, the move makes the most sense, starting with four-star defensive tackles Jaquelin Roy and Jacobian Guillory.
LSU also has quite the size in the middle with defensive tackles Tyler Shelvin and Siaki "Apu" Ika returning after a 2019 championship run. Orgeron said Pelini's aggressive nature is what attracted him to hiring the man who also won a national championship in Baton Rouge in 2007.
"I think he's going to put them in the best position to attack," Orgeron said. "I can expect us to get more sacks, more tackles for loss because of his defense. "I think it's more of a get up the field attack style. Let the defensive line make plays in the backfield, expect them to make plays in the backfield and blitzes."
With the defensive coordinator position filled, as well as many of the vacant offensive and defensive analyst jobs, the only coaching hire Orgeron is left with is finding a passing game coordinator. Orgeron said Wednesday he's already started the interview process but wants to take his time as there's no real rush to make any hire official until spring camp starts next month.
"Obviously there's a lot of coaches that are interested. We're looking at the NFL primarily but that's not to say we won't look in college," Orgeron said. "We're looking for different ideas. We're looking for things that can add to already great offense. We've interviewed one guy we're interviewing several more next week. I want to see what's out there and I want to do a great job of bringing the best I can to LSU."
Orgeron mentioned former offensive analyst Jorge Munoz as a candidate for the job despite leaving LSU to take the wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator job at Baylor. Whoever Orgeron decides to bring in, he wants new ideas to add to an already impressive offense.
"We want different ideas and we want to marry those ideas with an already prolific offense," Orgeron said. "The guys that comes in, whoever we hire, is going to have to know our system very well or teach us something different. We're trying to grow but we also want to reain the knowledge we learned from Joe [Brady] and the knowledge we learned from the Saints."
LSU opens spring practices on March 7, which gives Orgeron a month to find the best candidate available to replace Brady.
