LSU and Ed Orgeron Agree to Part Ways at the End of the 2021 Season

There you have it. Ed Orgeron will finish the 2021 season in Baton Rouge, but LSU will begin looking for its next head coach presumably as soon as today. Coach O will be out at the end of the season.

If both parties are happy with this arrangement, this seems like a pretty fair way to do things. Seemingly everyone understood Coach O was not going to be LSU's head coach in 2022, so this saves him the embarrassment of getting fired mis-season — which doesn't do anyone any good — gives the team several more games with the coach they signed up to play for and allows LSU to start its search now without having to go through any back channels or be secretive about it. It's tough to say everyone wins when somebody is losing his job, but as firings in college football go, this is as good as you could hope for.

Still, it's not often you see a coach and school parting ways less than two years after winning a national championship. Gene Chizik was out at Auburn two years after winning a title under pretty similar circumstances — Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback transfers in and leads the team to an undefeated season — but that's about it.

It does seem fitting, though, that Orgeron's time at LSU will come to an end essentially as the interim head coach. The role he was born to play.

I'm very interested to see if and where Orgeron gets another chance. UConn? That's a college football partnership I'd sign up to watch right now.

Regardless, one of the most high-profile jobs in college football is officially open. Let the bidding war commence.