Ed Orgeron reveals crazy recruiting war between Ole Miss, Mississippi State

It’s been a long time since Ed Orgeron was the head coach at the University of Mississippi but he still remembers the heated recruiting battles he had with cross-state rivals Mississippi State. Orgeron shared one of many memories from his time recruiting in Oxford on the Dan Patrick Show.

“One time we had a recruit that was committed to us and we couldn’t get in touch with him,” Orgeron said. “And all of a sudden, on the last night that we could go visit him, I had sent like nine of my coaches to his house. Mississippi State was at his house. It was a big deal, they were calling me and stuff. They said, ‘Coach, we can’t get in there.’ I said, ‘keep on fighting, keep on fighting.’ They stayed until midnight and that was it. The next day was a dead period and we couldn’t get in contact with the kid.

“They hid him,” Orgeron continued. “In a church, in the back of a church. He didn’t go to school. They hid him, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Obviously, he didn’t sign with us.”

During his time at Ole Miss, Ed Orgeron coached and recruited against 2007 SEC Coach of the Year, Sylvester Croom.

The former LSU head coach won’t be coaching anywhere this season. After losing the Tigers job, Orgeron shared that he wants to focus the next year on finding his sons jobs in coaching before getting back in the game in 2023.

Orgeron shares how he closed on recruits at USC

Ed Orgeron has always been a tough recruiter. It’s one of the qualities that made him such a successful assistant and how he built his 2019 national championship team.

In an interview on the Dan Patrick Show this week, Orgeron shared insight about how he would close the deal with recruits back in his time with the USC Trojans.

“Here’s the deal, Manhattan Beach, Sunday morning,” Orgeron said. “Me and Pete would bring them down to the Strand, breakfast in the Strand, overlooking the beach. And then I would take a personal walk, with each recruit, down the pier and have a little talk with them.

“And I’d say, ‘If you come to USC, you can be like, there’s Kobe Bryant’s house, there’s this movie star’s house, this movie star’s house.’ Now, I don’t know if they lived there, but it damn sounded good.”

After a good laugh, Patrick asked Orgeron whether or not he would lie to recruits in the process of winning them over.

“Basically I do a good job of listening to what they want,” Orgeron said. “They’ll tell you. And then you can deliver what they want.”