Christian “Rock” Van Buren

Ed Orgeron reveals he told Joe Burrow in a restaurant parking lot on his recruiting visit that LSU would fire him if he didn’t get him to commit, and says he told him if he did come he would win a National Championship “Joe comes on a visit. Now Joe was going to Cincinnati. Joe’s girlfriend was going to Cincinnati. Joe’s daddy coached about an hour away from there. So Joe comes on a visit with his mom and daddy. Great people.” “The first thing he tells me, ‘Coach, I don’t want to talk to you.’ He goes, ‘Coach, I know you’re a great recruiter. All I want to do is talk football and eat crawfish.’ Next day, we had a football meeting. There’s about 12 of us there.” “It took me five minutes to figure out, remember what Jimmy Johnson taught me? Smart quarterback. Joe was the smartest guy in the room, including me, including all the coaches. So anyway, in any good sales, there’s always a crack in the door. But you got to sense that crack. You got to seize it. If the crack’s not there, wait.” “I went up to him and I said, ‘Joe, I want to talk to you.’ He went, ‘Yes, sir.’ I knew it. So I took him outside. This might have been the most important talk I ever had in all my life. I said, ‘Joe, if you tell anybody about this conversation, it never happened.’” “‘Joe, I don’t get you, they’re going to fire me. I get you, we’re going to win the national championship. That’s how important you are to me.’ They’re going to fire me if you don't come here but if you do, we're going to win it all.”