By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – LSU head football coach Brian Kelly has never deviated from his philosophy of building a sustainable program.
Not a one-hit wonder like previous head coach Ed Orgeron, fired effective at the end of the 2021 season just two years after the Tigers won the 20198 national championship with a 15-0 record.
Because former Notre Dame coach Kelly signed a 10-year LSU contract with an annual salary of around $9.5 million – a high figure required to make the rare hire of swiping a proven head coach from another major power – there have been unreasonable expectations from LSU’s fanbase of an immediate turnaround of a program whose roster was bankrupted by Orgeron.
When Kelly went 10-4 and 10-3 in his first two LSU seasons, the anticipation of the Tigers challenging for a playoff spot accelerated this season even though he was just three years into rebuilding a roster with just 38 scholarship players when he took over.
Yet there is still work to be done. And as the 14th-ranked Tigers (3-1, 1-0 SEC) close the non-conference portion of their schedule vs. South Alabama (2-2, 1-0 Sun Belt) at 6:45 p.m. Saturday in Tiger Stadium, Kelly’s belief remains strong about constructing a championship program based on high school recruiting classes rather transfer portal signees.
His number of transfer portal signees has dropped with each recruiting class while the number of true freshmen Kelly signed who have played has increased.
Kelly played 15 true freshmen in his first season with four starting at least one game. Last year, 22 true freshmen played with four starting at least one game.
This season after just four games, 16 true freshmen have already played including 10 on defense (with three starting at least one game).
The influx of the newbies on defense is not only to get experience but to fill crucial roles such as the defensive line with three linemen taken in April’s NFL draft.
And then just in September, LSU has already lost senior starting tackle Jacobian Guillory with a season-ending torn Achilles and junior linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. (torn ACL). Senior reserve tackle Jalen Lee has been sidelined with a shoulder injury.
Consider all that and mix in an all-new defensive coaching staff in the off-season, the defensive performance weekly progresses inches forward trying to reduce coverage busts and increase fundamental soundness.
“With first-year (defensive) coaches and new players, they’re starting to get to know who their guys are and who they can lean on in certain situations,” Kelly said. “You’re going to see more guys we’re gradually bringing along thrust into the action.”
True in-state freshman defensive linemen like Ahmad Breaux of Ruston High, Dominick McKinley of Lafayette’s Acadiana High and Gabe Reliford of Shreveport’s Evangel Christian have been moved into more prominent roles. So has safety Deshawn Spears of Denham Springs.
Breaux weighed 245 pounds when he enrolled at LSU last January, which was ideal for playing linebacker as he did in high school but undersized to play on the defensive line.
“I played the whole spring trying to keep my weight down, but that didn’t work,” Breaux said. “So, when they (the coaches) told me to eat whatever I wanted (to gain weight), I just started eating a lot of protein.”
Breaux now weighs 282. Despite the added weight, he lost body fat even though his eating habits included frequent visits to What-a-burger and Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers.
Breaux, who credits veteran LSU defensive line coach Bo Davis with his transformation to tackle (“He made me a totally different player – I didn’t know how to use my hands or how to use my leverage,” Breaux said), was well-prepared mentally to play early in his college career.
Breaux’s defensive coordinator at Ruston was former LSU All-American defensive tackle Kyle Williams, a six-time Pro Bowl selection in his 13-year NFL career before the Ruston High alum retired in 2018 and moved back home with his family.
“Coach Kyle told me to do every drill full speed with your hair on fire,” Breaux said. “He taught me to have that mindset to never quit. He taught me how to work, how to play, how to be a man, everything that he had to learn growing up. He made me a way better player than what I would have been with anybody else.”
Kelly said he’s been happy with what’s seen upfront defensively from the young tackles as well as newbie Wisconsin senior transfer Gio Paez, second-year end/tackle Arizona senior transfer Paris Shane and vastly improved ends senior Sai’vion Jones and sophomore Dashawn Womack and second-year senior Oregon transfer Bradyn Swinson.
With 10 sacks in the last two weeks in wins over South Carolina and UCLA, the Tigers’ season total of 12 sacks is three ahead of last year’s pace.
“This is an important week for us as we continue to develop,” Kelly said. “After next week’s bye week, it’s welcome to the SEC with seven games in eight weeks.”
GO FIGURE
0: interceptions thrown by South Alabama, one of 14 FBS teams that haven’t had a pass picked
1-6: South Alabama’s record against SEC teams
14: LSU players have caught passes this season
19: Straight games in which the Tigers have thrown a TD pass
37-2: LSU’s record vs. Sun Belt Conference teams
73.3: Percent of South Alabama’s total offense this season produced by redshirt freshmen or true freshmen
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com