NEWYou can now listen to PK Press Club articles!
It’s been less than half a decade since Ed Orgeron last played on the football sidelines, but the sport has undergone a generational upheaval in the NIL era.
Coach O won a national championship at LSU with, in his words, “the best transfer of all time” in Joe Burrow on a team he says is “up there” among the greatest college football teams of all time. But the landscape has changed so much that even President Donald Trump signed an executive order “to save college sports.”
What remains of Trump’s executive order is a bit of a mystery, but Orgeron wishes Trump would be “more involved.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON PK Press Club
Ed Orgeron wants President Trump to be “more involved” in NIL regulations after the president called college sports a “disaster.” (Rebecca Warren/Imagn Images, Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“I think he should get more involved. Something has to happen. Our sport is being killed, man,” Orgeron said in a recent interview with PK Press Club Digital.
“I like players to get paid. I think it’s fair. But I think there should be a cap, and the transfer portal, there should be rules. It’s kind of like the Wild West. I talk to coaches, it’s like, ‘Hey man, we work 24/7, 12 months a year. It’s crazy when guys come, when they leave.” But you know what? You have to give and take. The players have to get a lot, but the schools have to get guarantees in return…
“I think the president, he loves football, he’s a friend of mine, the more he can step in and stop what’s happening in college football, the better.”
Trump recently exposed the so-called “disaster” that is NIL.
“I think it’s a disaster for college sports. I think it’s a disaster for the Olympics, because, you know, we’re losing a lot of teams. Colleges are cutting a lot of their — they would sort of call them ‘lower’ sports, and they’re losing them by numbers that no one can believe. They were truly training grounds, beautiful training grounds, hard-working, great young people. They were training grounds for the Olympics,” Trump said in the Oval Office last Thursday.
President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd before the start of the NFL Super Bowl LIX football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
ARCH MANNING RETURNING TO TEXAS FOR 2026 SEASON: REPORTS
“And a lot of these sports that trained so well would win gold medals because of it. These sports don’t exist, because they invest all their money in football. And besides, they invest too much money there, in football.”
Orgeron teamed up with player agent Tzvi Grossman to take advantage of the new NIL era and learned a lot while trying to find his next step in college football. But despite all the money flying around, Orgeron continues to believe that one aspect of recruiting trumps all.
LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron during a game between the Texas A&M Aggies and the LSU Tigers at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on November 27, 2021. (John Korduner/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“We still have to recruit, we still have to evaluate, we still have to have the moms, the champions, all that to have a championship football team, and then the (key word) develop,” Orgeron said. “Just because you’re paying guys – I believe all of our players should be paid, I agree with that – but the money they’re getting right now is not the money that Joe Burrow makes. It’s not the money that Ja’Marr Chase makes, nor is it Derek Stingley’s money. So in other words, developing at the school you’re going to go to is still important.”
