BATON ROUGE, LA - OCTOBER 22: Head coach Ed Orgeron of the LSU Tigers calls a timeout during the second half of a game against the Mississippi Rebels at Tiger Stadium on October 22, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

Ed Orgeron explains just how close Lane Kiffin was from taking the LSU OC job

Both men will be fun to monitor in 2017.

After Lane Kiffin exited from the Alabama football program as the offensive coordinator, there was quite a bit of buzz about where he might end up in the future. Obviously, Kiffin landed on his feet as the head coach at FAU but, prior to that, a school of thought formed that Kiffin might end up as the offensive coordinator under Ed Orgeron at LSU.

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In fact, Steven Godfrey of SB Nation recently caught up with Orgeron about that possibility and the LSU head coach indicated that it was pretty close to happening.

"I know probably — and I can't blame them — I know that Alabama probably didn't want him to come here. I'm assuming they did everything they could to get him a head job. But he was honest with us. He said, 'Coach, I'm coming to LSU unless I get a head job, and I want a head job.'

"We thought he had the Houston job. He woulda been dynamite there. Dynamite. Then we hear about Florida Atlantic, and we didn't think he'd take that. But he calls and says, 'Hey man, I'm coming. I've got one more meeting, and I'm just going to listen to them.' Ended up, he took the job."

Kiffin is, by all accounts, a dynamic football mind and, given how entertaining Orgeron already is at the top, LSU would have been a traveling circus. From a personality standpoint, it might have been an odd fit but, unfortunately, the public was robbed of this possibility by Kiffin picking up the head coaching job he truly desired.

Both men will be fun to monitor in 2017 in different locations but it would have been fun to see Ed Orgeron and Lane Kiffin on the same sideline in Baton Rouge.