BATON ROUGE, La. -- LSU star running back Leonard Fournette echoed the sentiments of many of his teammates upon learning about the firing of 12th-year head coach Les Miles.
"At the end of the day, I love him. I just hope the best for him," the Heisman Trophy contender told reporters Sunday following a team meeting.
Fournette, who missed the first 20 minutes of the impromptu meeting because of a doctor's appointment, said he spoke privately with Miles afterward.
"I'm going to keep that between us," Fournette said in reference to the conversation.
Miles, one of the most successful coaches in SEC history, was fired as head coach of the Tigers after a disappointing 2-2 start. Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron and assistant director of football operations Dean Dingman were also let go.
Defensive line coach Ed Orgeron, who went 6-2 after taking over for Lane Kiffin as USC's interim coach in 2013, will replace Miles as interim coach, and tight ends coach Steve Ensminger will serve as the new offensive coordinator.
Miles and Orgeron both addressed the team at the meeting.
"That man (Miles) is so passionate about LSU," safety Jamal Adams said. "He's been here for 12 years, he recruited me and I think that he was just very emotional as far as letting go. But he wants to do what was best for us."
It was also an emotional meeting for his players.
"When he came and he gave his speech, it touched me," senior wide receiver Travin Dural said. "You could feel the pain in his voice, you could hear it. He almost broke down, but you could tell he loves this program, he loves this school. He loves every one of us. He's a players' coach. If anybody tells you different, I don't know what their experience was with him. I have nothing but great memories with him. Everyone has great memories with him."
Orgeron emphasized teamwork when he spoke to the players, bringing out a piece of rope as a symbol that they must all pull in the same direction to finish the season successfully.
Dural suggested that Orgeron's message was something the team needed to hear.
"A couple of us might have been looking on to the NFL," Dural said. "A couple of us might've just been worrying about stats, and that kind of hurt us. It showed. A couple guys missed assignments, tried to do too much. But looking forward, I think we have a new outlook on things. I think the program's going to move forward."
It wasn't a day for positivity around LSU's football facility, but center Ethan Pocic said the Tigers can gain some level of confidence from Orgeron's prior experience in this kind of situation. USC was 3-2 and going nowhere after a 62-41 loss to Arizona State when Orgeron took over for Kiffin in September 2013, only to lead the team to a 9-4 record and top-20 final ranking.
"Coach O's a fiery guy and now that this all happened, being sad and stuff like that, that's not going to help us," said Pocic, whose team hosts Missouri on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network). "We just want to go play ball on Saturday."
Sunday was not about Orgeron, however. LSU will officially introduce its interim coach at a luncheon on Monday. The sting of Miles' departure was still too fresh Sunday for the focus to be on anyone but the longtime coach.
He has been one of the sport's most popular, quirky figures for more than a decade, and the players unanimously agreed they will miss Miles' presence greatly.
"He's a different guy, he has a different sense of humor, he has a different way of going about doing things. ... He did a lot of great things and he brought out the best in all of us," Dural said. "He was a players' coach. He taught me a lot of things and I experienced a lot of things with him, and I'm going to miss him. Everybody's going to miss him -- the whole program, the whole state of Louisiana, all LSU fans -- we're going to miss him."