Ed Orgeron's evolution could mean future with USC football

• Interim head coach Ed Orgeron has learned from the past%2C and it%27s paying off for USC football
• Trojans athletics director Pat Haden says Orgeron is a legitimate candidate for the permanent job
• USC has a 3-1 record since the Sept. 29 dismissal of former coach Lane Kiffin

LOS ANGELES — There was nothing Ed Orgeron could do about the messy ending at Ole Miss, about the pain of watching players he recruited win under another coach, about the Southeastern Conference chewing him up and turning him into a mumbling caricature, which hurt far more than he ever publicly let on. When you fail as spectacularly as Orgeron failed at being a college head coach, you pretty much disappear, and you don't ever expect another chance.

Still, almost every night for the past five years, Orgeron has kept a notebook that is part catharsis, part instruction manual. If somehow, some way, he ever got one more shot to run a program, it would be there to remind him what he would do different, which was basically everything.

"It was my shot in the SEC, and I was given a good shot, and I was really discouraged that I didn't make it," Orgeron said. "I had to look at myself."

Those scars of self-discovery have come in handy for Orgeron, the unmistakable, hard-charging Cajun, who was improbably given another opportunity when Southern Cal fired Lane Kiffin on Sept. 29 and elevated him to interim head coach for the remainder of this season.

Everything Kiffin did, Orgeron undid. Every decision from team meals to whether music played at practice, Orgeron reversed. Fifteen times a day, he says, Orgeron thinks about how he would have done something at Ole Miss and then stops and goes the opposite direction.

Suddenly, a Southern Cal program that was languishing in tension and self-pity has started winning again, having fun again. And for Orgeron, who has engineered a surprising 3-1 record since taking over, the idea that he may once again be a head coach – if not at USC, somewhere else – is not so far-fetched.

Though everybody in college football expects USC athletics director Pat Haden to chase bigger names and ultimately make an A-list hire, Orgeron told USA TODAY Sports he's thought about the possibility of getting the job full-time.

"It didn't start out like that," Orgeron said. "I was very honored they chose me to try to just keep things together. I saw these young men hurting in a very trying time, and it was all about them. I can honestly say that. But as I see them play good, I'm starting to get the itch. The more I'm around them, the more I'd love to be their head coach. But here's my thought: one game at a time, one day at a time, let the chips fall where they may."

So far, they have fallen impressively. Despite mounting injuries and the lingering effect of NCAA sanctions – they were down to just 46 healthy scholarship players last week – the Trojans have improved every time out under Orgeron, culminating with players carrying him off the field last Friday following a 31-14 win at Oregon State.

Haden has noticed, telling USA TODAY Sports he considers Orgeron a legitimate candidate for the job.

"Ed's just changed the energy," Haden said. "He's an iconic guy that kids relate to, and it's not fake. We've got big games, rivalry games ahead of us. There's a lot to play for. We're in no rush. We're going to get the right person."

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Few would have called Orgeron "iconic" on Nov. 24, 2007 when Ole Miss fired him after seasons of 3-8, 4-8 and 3-9. Though he brought in highly-ranked recruiting classes, fulfilling the reputation he brought from USC where he had a significant hand in Pete Carroll's success, Orgeron could never get a feel for how to manage personnel. He only knew how to coach one way: aggressive, to the point of being maniacal, pushing every one of his players and coaches with the same intensity he pushed Warren Sapp and Cortez Kennedy back at Miami when he was a young defensive line assistant.

It was too much. For all the talent he brought to Ole Miss – talent that went 9-4 each of the next two years under Houston Nutt – Orgeron won just three SEC games and found himself the target of parody for everything from his motivational tactics to his thick Louisiana accent and gravelly voice. There was even a song written by a Memphis radio host that imitates him, effectively turning Orgeron into a cartoon character.

"I thought that was very, very unfair," he said. "The songs they made up made me sound like a person I wasn't. I couldn't say anything, but I took it personal. It's hard. We're Cajun, that's the way we talk. Taking off my shirt (in a team meeting), we did that here, we got applauded for it. Go down there and they look at you different. But I learned, and it was a great experience to get me ready for this job or the next job. I made mistakes and hopefully I'm not repeating them."

When Orgeron came back to USC in 2010 as the defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator, Kiffin wanted him to be the disciplinarian, the hammer. But without a "good cop" to offset the "bad cop," Orgeron said he could see Kiffin heading down the same path that got him fired at Ole Miss.

"I could see that starting to wear on the guys a little bit, and I'm sitting back going, 'Oh boy, is it going to work?' " Orgeron said.

It didn't. On Sept. 29, the day after a 62-41 loss to Arizona State, Orgeron inherited a mentally fragile, emotionally exhausted team and started turning everything upside-down. Kiffin had closed practices to the media; Orgeron opened them. When players looked tired during a film session, he ended it immediately and took them to the movies. He stopped playing music during practice, but put it in meeting rooms. He got In-and-Out burger and Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles to cater team meals.

All of them, individually, were small things. But the ecosystem in which players live had been turned completely around.

"Coach O is very unique in a good way," quarterback Cody Kessler said. "He has done a great job of really really bonding with the team. He's connected with us. I love playing for the guy."

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Who knows how long USC can keep this roll going. The margin for error is small, and the Trojans lost another player Wednesday when linebacker Morgan Breslin was declared out for the rest of the regular season with a hip injury. They may not have many healthy bodies left by the time they play UCLA on Nov. 30.

But Orgeron's approach has been just what they've needed. No matter how short-handed the Trojans have been, they've played loose and executed to a degree that didn't seem possible in the first four games of the season. They're even talking bowl games and the possibility of running the table. And if nothing else, Orgeron has proven that he's come a long way from the embarrassment of getting run out of the SEC in near-record time.

"I was trying the hard-ass approach (at Ole Miss), and it didn't work," Orgeron said. "I think the best thing that's happened to me is being the parent of teen-agers, and I'm not a hard-nosed parent. I'm kind of a kind, loving dad and I said you know what, if I ever get a team again I'm going to treat them like my sons and show them I care about them. There's going to be some discipline, but treat them very well. I told them the first day, guys, we're going to be family and I'll treat you like my sons and they know it and it's worked."

Dan Wolken, a national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @DanWolken.