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Bowl game forces LSU to celebrate Christmas in a 2-minute drill

LSU’s football team grabbed all the Christmas it could over the weekend.

<p>BATON ROUGE, LA - OCTOBER 01: Derrius Guice #5 hugs head coach Ed Orgeron of the LSU Tigers after a touchdown against the Missouri Tigers at Tiger Stadium on October 1, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)</p>

BATON ROUGE – LSU’s football team grabbed all the Christmas it could over the weekend.

After an early morning practice Thursday, the Tigers were off for two full days and some were to get Christmas morning off Sunday. But everyone had to be scheduled to be back by Christmas afternoon.

“Christmas morning, I’ll wake up, open more presents, and then I’ll be flying back at about 1 p.m. to get back to Baton Rouge to get ready for the bowl game,” LSU quarterback Danny Etling said last week.

Etling, a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, went to the two-minute offense – Christmas style.

“It’s going to be quick, but it’s great to get a chance to go back home no matter how fast it has to be,” he said.

The No. 20 Tigers (7-4) will be practicing throughout the post-Christmas week for the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, on Dec. 31 when it will play No. 13 Louisville (9-3) at 10 a.m. on ABC.

“Everyone will be ready after we get back home from the Christmas break and really start to gear up and get our minds ready to play,” Etling said.

Etling and other Tigers were very much looking forward to Christmas with their families before returning to football.

“Christmas Eve, we go to mass,” Etling said. “Usually go get some type of coffee or hot chocolate after that. Then we’ll go over to my grandma’s house in Terre Haute – me and like 30 something cousins in a small one-story house. We all open presents and exchange gifts.”

Etling was speechless when asked what his favorite all-time Christmas present was. After a long pause, he smiled and went politically correct. “My favorite present? A scholarship to LSU.”

LSU wide receiver Malachi Dupre of New Orleans did not hesitate when asked for his favorite present.

“I got a little electric 4-Wheeler when I was probably 5 of 6,” he said. “It was my first sense of freedom. I got to ride up and down my street. My parents obviously were monitoring me. That was a cool gift.”

LSU nose guard Greg Gilmore of Hope Mills, North Carolina, remembers the anticipation and the food more than a particular present.

“We ate good,” he said. “That’s what sticks out. Definitely ate good. I’m too big (6-foot-4, 313 pounds) not to eat good. It was usually Thanksgiving type food, but there were special little dishes. My dad (Glen Gilmore) made some great yams.”

There were full stomachs but sleepy heads.

“We went to sleep so late,” Gilmore said. “Me and my brother, we went to sleep late, but woke up early. Probably was up at 5, or something crazy like that, but just stayed in our room waiting.”

Down in LaRose on Bayou Lafourche, LSU coach Ed Orgeron ate very well, too. But what he remembers most about Christmas presents was a certain uniform. Orgeron, 55, was a Saint before he was a Tiger. When he was 6, the New Orleans Saints played their first NFL season in 1967 in Tulane Stadium. At Christmas a year later, he went into wardrobe.

“I remember in the front yard, we were singing, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,” Orgeron said last week. “I remember the first game, listening on the radio. The next year, I got a Saints uniform. It was a big deal. My mom (Cornelia “Coco” Orgeron) probably still has it in a closet somewhere. It had the pads, the Saints helmet. The best thing is we played football in the yard all day.”

And the gold uniform soon faded because Orgeron wore it so much. He later played offensive and defensive line for South Lafourche High School in Galliano with quarterback Bobby Hebert, who would lead the Saints to their first-ever playoff appearance in 1987. South Lafourche won the 1977 state championship with Orgeron and Hebert. Orgeron signed at LSU in 1979, but stayed only a few weeks before joining Hebert at Northwestern State. He would later be a defensive line coach with the Saints in 2008.

Orgeron’s Christmas menu on the bayou differed dramatically from those in Indiana and North Carolina.

“My mama’s oyster dressing,” Orgeron said. “I’d have oyster dressing for breakfast.”

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