BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – LSU coach Ed Orgeron didn’t want the game ball, turning down a chance to stick it in the faces of so many critics who think he is in over his head.
Across Tiger Stadium, Auburn fans clustered in the stands near the visitor’s locker room voiced their displeasure with coach Gus Malzahn, some yelling audibly that he’s “got to go.”
Such is life in the Southeastern Conference, where a young LSU team might be changing minds – and winning back disillusioned fans – thanks to a pair of gritty victories.
D.J. Chark returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown, Connor Culp kicked field goals of 42 and 36 yards inside the final three minutes, and LSU erased a 20-point deficit on its way to a 27-23 victory over No. 10 Auburn on Saturday.
“We’re just becoming a football team. Our whole staff is galvanized. Our football team is galvanized,” Orgeron said. “We were going to be resilient. We weren’t going to give up. We were going to block out the noise and we were going to fix the things that were fixable.”