As we've stated here before, perhaps no one in college football lost key pieces in the same way that LSU did after their national championship season. Heisman winner Joe Burrow went #1 overall to the Bengals in the NFL Draft, defensive coordinator Dave Aranda left for his first head coaching job at Baylor, and passing game coordinator Joe Brady took his talents to Carolina to be the offensive coordinator for Matt Rhule.
Those moves are on top of the Tigers tying an NFL record of 14 players selected in the NFL Draft.
Fans knew there would be some growing pains in 2020. But their week 1 loss to Mississippi State, where new defensive coordinator Bo Pelini and the Tigers defense allowed the most passing yards in SEC history and gave up 44 points in a loss seems to look worse and worse as Mike Leach's offense has struggled to put points on the board in recent weeks - even being shut out for the first time in Mike Leach's head coaching career this past weekend against Alabama (who LSU will play following a bye this next weekend).
After a 48-11 loss to Auburn on Saturday to drop to 2-3, the stark possibility of going from national title to sub-.500 is starting to settle in. The loss was historic as it marked the largest margin of victory ever between the two teams and 48 points was the most points ever put up by either team in the match up.
Making that slightly more frustrating is the fact that Auburn was held scoreless after a quarter of play, and they were able to rattle off 48 points in the next three periods.
Asked after their loss last night about evaluating the coaching staff at this point in the season, and if "reassignments" were on the table.
Orgeron answered, "No" before adding "We evaluate everyday, and we're always evaluating."
He went on to note that he believes you've got to go through an entire season, give everyone a chance and then take a look at how they're doing at the end of the season. When the season is over, Orgeron said he will then evaluate the staff.
Offensively, LSU's struggled as well on Saturday. The Tigers finished with just 32 yards rushing, coughed up the ball three times, and went just 5 of 17 on third downs.
It doesn't get any easier looking ahead to the rest of the schedule. The Tigers currently have three top 10 team remaining on their schedule vs. Alabama, and then at Texas A&M, and at Florida, with matchups with Arkansas and Ole Miss that certainly won't be easy either.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.