Lonn Phillips Sullivan
Mar 26, 20206 min
Updated: May 24, 2020
(the following is a work of fiction and should not represent LSU football or any parties therein, a work of jest, of celebration, of confirmation, and though it may be fictional every damn word of it's true isn't it? Everyone should get their popcorn ready...)
It was 2am and Coach Orgeron was calling...
"You think our work is done heeuh, boys?! You satisfied with one? Cause us coaches: we aren't...put yo' cell phones, yo' pads, pods, or pizza sticks down, and get yo' asses outside! We have a national championship to defend!" He sent via video message to every single one of his players.
"Sorry Coach I was sleeping, don't you want us to sleep?" Came the bleary voice of Myles Brennan back.
"If you wanna sleep forever, Myles...you can do just that...but I can't promise you'll be our quarterback when you wake up," Coach O quipped, chuckling through true, serious grit, "You wanna win the Heisman, too? Or ya just wanna kiss Joe's?" He challenged Myles, the Slim Reaper quickly getting dressed as Ed's hickory tobacco voice laughed through the speakerphone: "Im sure he'll letcha kiss it? We could practice your pose instead of your..."
"Who the hell is Joe Burrow?" Myles replied defiantly, sweat crawling down his face as he dared to question the very fibre of the G.O.A.T.
Coach Orgeron grew still, his breath shallow in his rigid intense silence....suddenly, robust, animated laughter danced from his mouth, "that's my boy!"
Brennan laced up, made his way out to the practice field, stopping at a lonely, pump-only gas station nearby to fill a water bottle...except it wasn't his thirst Myles needed to quench:
As he walked up to the field, he saw Coaches Orgeron, Ensminger, Tommy Moffitt standing alongside offensive analysts Carter Sheridan and Russ Calloway hanging out:
The best staff in college football were left waiting, hands on hips, attending to Myles' every move with their "prove it all night" eyes.
Myles strode gracefully, he stopped...maybe thirty yards away...and set his things down.
The coaches called over to him, yet he ignored them; he grabbed the football, began dousing the water bottle's contents across the leather, then set the ball aside.
"We workin' on wet wethuh drills or you tryin to find yo' phone to call Joe for help?" Coach O joked, turning to the guys with outstretched hands, "what is he doing?"
Suddenly without provocation, our 2020 QB grabbed the dripping wet football, ripped out a lighter, sparked up the last remaining chunk of the title-winning cigar he'd saved, and took a huge drag....then, as the smoke climbed into the witching hour abyss of the night sky, he used the cigar's flaming end to ignite the football, a raging inferno he now placed with uncompromising gusto into his right palm.
"Myles! What're you...." Moffitt began.
"Wait...." Coach O stopped the strength and conditioning coach from intervening... "just wait..."
As the football became encased in fire, Myles's right hand gripped it even tighter, his glaring dominion unsettling the coaches as his wild, feral eyes cast doubt over the future of each witnesses's soul...all while the flames charred the football, his now glowing, orbital right hand somehow remained untouched by the fire.
When the pigskin began to peel, Myles suddenly threw the flaming ball 80 yards into the air, straight over the coaches' heads, and landing like a claymore in the end zone....still smoking.
Myles stared them down, winked, and walked away into the night, Orgeron and his staff left to look at each other in transfixed wonder.
"We gonna start drilling that?" Moffitt asked Orgeron.
Later on, another LSU hero's phone rang:
Mr. Ja'Marr Chase woke from his slumber....he knew who would be calling.
"Coach?"
"Is that a #7 on your back? Or just a Bama fan trying to draw a circle?!" Orgeron barked into the phone, Ja'Marr laughing in a deadly tired daze.
"Where you want me, Coach?" Chase asked, rising out of bed.
"Ever gone repelling, Ja'Marr?" Coach asked.
An hour later, Chase found himself standing, yet strapped down, in the bed of a pickup truck flying down I-10 at 85 mph, catching passes with one arm, reaching out over the rolling pavement below, Myles throwing accurately while strapped in a pickup truck driving in the other lane.
If the passes weren't accurate...they could find themselves 55 miles back, skidding along the pavement like Stephen Rivers experienced a few years back during the same "drill".
"Can we do the piranha drill?" Chase excitedly asked Orgeron after they pulled over and took a break, gazing upon the stars.
"Only OBJ and Joe were crazy enough to do the piranha drill at LSU, Ja'Marr, are you sure?"
"Fill the tank..." Chase demanded, strapping on a purple #7 jersey.
An hour later, Terrace Marshall joined the party, and the receiving duo were diving face first into the deep end of a pool....containing 4 piranha:
The object of the game: jump, catch the pass in the air, then out-swim the piranha the entire 80 yard length of the pool, get out, jump back in while catching a pass in the air and do it all over again.
The first to draw blood would fall maimed and athletically humiliated before these titans of college football, these self-anointed, world-affirmed glory merchants....
As Myles tossed passes from a diving board 40 feet above, Terrace and Chase were rampant, catching every pass, out-swimming the piranha, and jumping back in the water enthusiastically...intriguingly, Terrace began mocking one of the piranhas for "running outta breath".
The message was now abundantly clear throughout the squad.
Get your gear and get ready to run your lungs out...work your face off...we can outlast, we will adapt, and then we shall dominate and delegate their undoing.
These are just a few examples of the brutal trenchwork from which Coach Ed Orgeron and strength / conditioning coach Tommy Moffitt are building champions...an art Orgeron is now definitively credited for after 2019's Weapons of Ass-Kicking Destruction, though this had always been a destiny he'd been born for.
He pulls no punches... demanding the same from his guys, "are you ready for the intensity it takes to sculpt a champion?"
"BORN READY!" They'll reply in unison as Sgt. Orgeron moves between the lines of ladders being run from the 2020 Tigers.
"WHY ARE YOU BORN READY?!" Coach O will ask them, hand cupping his ear.
"WE'RE LSU READY!" They reply, some of the new guys beginning to wilt from the intensity. Orgeron rushes over, and right when they expect an ass-whooping he softly says:
"You got this, son, you got this come on, let's geaux, we learn, we react, we act...come on now, there you geaux...finish!"
Far more than bullish, jockheaded platitudes, Orgeron offers his men a delectable, lengthy staff full of infinite resources from the bottomless football trade. The La Rose native is seeking out-of-the-box hires within Louisiana or elsewhere to compliment his already vast staff and an ever-changing world full of curveballs:
Our program is the most innovative, progressive, and now most successful in the country, launching young analysts into major NFL or collegiate coaching spots (Joe Brady, D.J Mangus, Jorge Munoz, etc), then to top it off, we've hired six women to our support staff (Alabama have 0 and Clemson have 2).
There's a culture here, there was one before Orgeron, there will always be an LSU culture itself, however...
Orgeron has established his own vibe, and this Habitat of Bama Inhumanity has been slathered all over LSU as a university, a football program, and Louisiana as a state.
The ravages of the Covid-19 virus now present an infinite amount of challenges to our world: will games go on? Will games be played without crowds? Will we be able to experience a full season?
The pride and work ethic of our players resumes, without stoppage or failure during this lockdown madness (thanks to the nasty virus as well as its own connected incitement of panic).
Yet what makes LSU fans the greatest fans of the best team in the world is our diversity:
We are the most diverse fanbase in the country without a doubt, but no matter who we vote for, who we support politically, or what we may post or say on social media pertaining to the virus, there is one thing we can all agree on:
If we follow the Coach O Covid-19 Game Plan (aka Operation Hawknight Menace), we will succeed.
No matter what you believe, THIS IS A SPORTING ISSUE, TOO...the very future of human sport could be altered considerably from this contagion of Stupid-19.
Live your lives, but do 90-95% of your daily activities from home...like we already have the past few decades...and then we can watch Myles Brennan destroy SEC defenses this fall.
The uncertainty is something we cannot escape...but as much as we all can sense this palpable worldwide tension, I also see a litany of positives coming from this World Wide Time Out, none more impactful than:
"Hey Coach?" Stingley asks Orgeron via Facetime.
"What's up, Derek?" Coach O replies with his typical grin.
"Do I have to do punt returns this season?"