LSU coach Lane Kiffin will make his highly anticipated return to Oxford, Miss., on Saturday.
The status for another former Ole Miss coach on the Tigers’ staff, special assistant Ed Orgeron, is uncertain for the trip, but has notably improved, according to an update Monday from Kiffin.
“He’s doing better,” Kiffin said. “It was a little bit scary. I’m not gonna get into the details with that. He’s doing better. He’s still not all the way back.
“He just means a lot to me. We’ve just been through a lot — and his passion. And probably shouldn’t have joked one day: He said, ‘Coach, you know I’m not going to the hospital. If I die, I’m dying on that field out there.’ So that’s who he is. That’s how he is with everything. And sometimes that’s not always the best thing to follow.”
The coach added that Orgeron, his longtime friend in the coaching industry, had returned to the LSU Football Ops buildings for portions of, but not entire, days, but that they hadn’t yet discussed whether he might travel this week for the team’s first road game.
Kiffin and Orgeron worked together at USC from 2001 and 2004, including a few games in which the latter served as interim coach.
Orgeron earned his first head coaching opportunity at Ole Miss from 2005 to 2007 before eventually getting another chance to do so at LSU from 2016 to 2021, including leading the 2019 national championship run.
Kiffin left USC for his first lead job in 2007 with the Oakland Raiders and had short stints at Tennessee, USC, Alabama (on Nick Saban’s staff) and Florida Atlantic before six seasons with the Rebels from 2020 to 2025.
He was announced Nov. 30, 2025, as the new LSU coach and hired Orgeron this spring in a role in which the Larose native and former South Lafourche and Northwestern State standout has already visibly helped both on the practice field and the recruiting trail.
Kiffin confirmed in mid-August, without sharing personal specifics, that Orgeron hadn’t been feeling well, had been sent home and was expected back soon — a return that has appeared to be occurring gradually.
