LSU returns home to celebrate national championship: ‘A great cap to a great season’
BATON ROUGE, La. — And on the sixth day … they partied.
LSU topped of its greatest week in football history on Saturday afternoon with a national championship celebration on campus, culminating at the Maravich Assembly Center with a packed house of more than 13,000 in attendance.
On Monday night, they won the national championship, 42-25, over defending national champion Clemson in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.
On Thursday, they hit Washington.
On Friday, they met President Donald Trump at the White House.
And on Saturday? What else? A parade.
“It just hit me, man. I shed a tear,” LSU senior defensive end Rashard Lawrence of Monroe — wearing shades and beads at the podium in the Maravich Assembly Center — said after the parade.
“This is a dream come true. For me, I had to fight back tears,” said LSU junior safety JaCoby Stevens, who will return for the 2020 season and not enter the NFL draft as nine non-seniors have decided to do.
“He’d be a pretty good No. 18, Coach,” said emcee Jacob Hester, the original No. 18from Shreveport-Bossier who was a star tailback on LSU’s previous national championship team in the 2007 season.
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LSU quarterback Joe Burrow wore a cap backwards and shades in obvious non-game day mode.
“You might not be from Louisiana, but you’re one of our own,” Hester told Burrow, who completed 31 of 49 passes for 463 yards and five touchdowns with a rushing TD despite torn rib cartilage suffered in the second quarter Monday.
Then one of Louisiana’s very own personified — head coach Ed Orgeron of Larose on Bayou Lafourche — took the microphone.
“The expectations were a national championship,” he said. “But you know what when you have this staff right here, you can win a national championship. I want everybody on our staff to stand up.”
Orgeron asked his assistant coaches in the front row to take a bow.
“That is the very best staff in the world right there,” Orgeron said. “One team, one heartbeat.”
And another honorary staff member took a bow — Orgeron’s wife Kelly.
“As many of you know, we went on a blind date,” he said. “And when you look at her, and you look at me, you want to know if she’s blind! Get up, baby.”
As the crowd roared yet again, Orgeron said, “We have the best fans in the world.”
Burrow, LSU’s first Heisman Trophy winner since Billy Cannon in 1959, naturally drew the most applause when he presented a second 2019 Heisman Trophy to LSU.
And he showed how Louisiana he is when Hester asked him what the “team Heisman moment” was in 2019. Naturally, he brought up the 46-41 win at Alabama on Nov. 9 that snapped an eight-game losing streak.
“Got to be going into Tuscaloosa right?” he said as the crowd erupted. “Scoreboard didn’t show it, but that was complete dominance.”
