From the swamp to the bayou, the war on the media apparently knows no bounds.
The Baton Rouge Advocate reports that Ed Orgeron has significantly reversed the openness of the program and completely shut out media access to LSU’s preseason camp this year, blocking an outside look into the Tigers’ practice for the first time.
“The complete closure of camp practices could be a first ever for the school, and LSU appears to be the only program in the Southeastern Conference to have done so,” the paper said. “All other schools plan or have allowed reporters into practice for at least one day of drills, according to camp schedules obtained by The Advocate.”
Players are set to report to camp on Sunday, with the team’s first practice the following day. LSU provided a statement that said the school will provide video and photos of practice each day but each will obviously be vary controlled in terms of content.
The restrictive new policies with the media are quite the reversal for Orgeron, who once coached in front of hundreds of fans and media members while an assistant under Pete Carroll at USC and later opened up practices to reporters in Los Angeles as interim head coach of the Trojans. Even during his first head coaching stop at fellow SEC school Ole Miss, the raspy-voiced cajun held open practices early during his tenure in Oxford.
Sadly closed practices are becoming all the norm in college football and after previously being much more open than Les Miles was the past few years, Orgeron appears to be joining the trend and giving the boot to the media at LSU’s practices.