LSU Tigers

As LSU prepares to begin spring practice March 14, GeauxTigerNation will take daily looks at aspects of the spring camp. This is the sixth in the series:

BATON ROUGE, La. -- In four years, LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis has not yet had a unit allow an average of 20 points per game. No defense has allowed more than than an average 328 yards a game, not more than 307 yards an outing after his first season.

Can he maintain that kind of quality?

Maybe, but if he does, it will be through perhaps his best rebuilding job to date at LSU, one that starts this week when the Tigers begin spring practice.

LSU returns starters at just four positions on defense and enters spring trying to revamp a defensive line that lost all four of its starters and six of its top nine players.

On paper, one might argue that it's the biggest challenge yet for Chavis at LSU.

One might disagree at first blush. When Chavis arrived in 2009, he was replacing Bradley Dale Peveto and Doug Mallory after the Tigers were perceived to have given up too many points and too many big plays in an 8-5 season. Many looked at the departures as a purging, of sorts, of the defensive problems.

But looking back, that 2008 defense only allowed a reasonable 325 yards per game and 24 points per gam, and those totals were skewed by an offense that committed 20 turnovers, often leading to points for the opposition. That 2009 defense returned six starters, including four future NFL draft picks.

Chavis' first defense actually gave up more yards per game (just under 329) than the 2008 team, but allowed a touchdown a game fewer thanks in no small part to the elimination of big plays by the defense and turnovers on offense.

So this year's defense will have to replace more starters and have to live up to a greater expectation.

After his first year, Chavis' teams have been allowing at least 20 yards less per game than that first defense.

Three things will have to happen if LSU is going to continue its dominance under Chavis. LSU must:

• Find playmakers on the defensive line. With all four starters gone, the Tigers will need a leader -- perhaps big-play tackle Anthony Johnson -- and some young talent to emerge. LSU has recruited well on the defensive line, but the talent is unproven. Young defensive linemen will have to make names for themselves this spring.
• Find a middle linebacker. With Kevin Minter's departure to the NFL, the Tigers don't have an obvious choice to lead the defense from the middle linebacker spot. Lamin Barrow was a 100-tackle star on the weak side, but does his game fit that of a middle linebacker? If not, which of LSU's many young prospects will step up in Minter's spot?
• Find a leader in the secondary. Eric Reid was a solid player, a good student and a natural leader at free safety. With Reid also in the NFL, does LSU have a leader in the secondary? Reid, Tyrann Mathieu, Morris Claiborne and Patrick Peterson are among the players LSU has had in the defensive backfield who came with leadership qualities. Can LSU can that from Craig Loston or one of the Jalens (Mills or Collins) at cornerback? How about from a new starter, potentially Ronald Martin?

BATON ROUGE, La. -- By the middle of August camp, free safety Eric Reid was the only returning starter in LSU's vaunted secondary.

After Heisman Trophy finalist Tyrann Mathieu was dismissed from the team, Reid, the junior free safety from Geismar, became the elder statesman and responded with a solid, 91-tackle, two-interception season during which he was the Tigers' unquestioned leader in the secondary and became a consensus All-American.

His end of the bargain held up, Reid announced his decision Friday to leave LSU for the NFL. He wasn't the only one.

In a mild surprise, junior cornerback Tharold Simon also declared for the draft after leading the team with four interceptions and 13 passes defended. A first-year starter in 2012, he was a key piece to the LSU secondary in 2011 as the fifth defensive back whose presence allowed the Tigers to use Mathieu as a nickel back.

With their departures, all six of LSU's primary defensive backs on the 2011 team -- Simon, Reid, Mathieu, cornerback Morris Claiborne, safety Brandon Taylor and dime back Ron Brooks -- probably will be on NFL rosters next season.

Regardless, LSU looks to be in better shape next season than it was entering 2012. Where only two of the top six DBs returned for the 2012 season, the Tigers should still have four of their top six back next season.

Junior strong safety Craig Loston probably will return for his senior year and starting cornerback Jalen Mills, nickel back Jalen Collins and dime back Micah Eugene were all freshmen.

That bodes well for the Tigers' secondary, which outperformed expectations most of the year, given that Mathieu's departure forced LSU to have to start a true freshman, Mills, in his place. The Tigers did struggle down the stretch, allowing four straight 300-yard passing games to finish the season.

Developing young talent will be crucial this offseason. Ronald Martin, Eugene, Corey Thompson and Jerqwinick Sandolph are young safeties who might vie for Reid's free safety spot. LSU has one 2013 recruit committed, Jeremy Cutrer. But LSU is pursuing more, including ESPN 150 safety Priest Willis.

At cornerback, Collins figures to replace Mills and LSU also returns Dwayne Thomas and Derrick Raymond and has a talented class of cornerbacks coming on signing day, including three four-star prospects -- Jeryl Brazil, Tre'Davious White and Rickey Jefferson -- and three-star Rashard Robinson.

 

 

BATON ROUGE, La. -- On a cool November day, LSU trailed and needed a pick-me-up when its sophomore punt returner fielded a kick, weaved through the defense, and scored a momentum-shifting touchdown to the delight of a nervous Tiger Stadium crowd.

“That may be the biggest momentum changer I saw,” LSU coach Les Miles said later, after his Tigers pulled away to win.

Question is, what game was he talking about? Was it last year when the Tigers used a Tyrann Mathieu touchdown to propel a comeback against Arkansas?

Actually, it was Saturday when Odell Beckham Jr. returned an Ole Miss punt 89 yards for a touchdown, tying the score in the fourth quarter in what was eventually a 41-35 LSU win over Ole Miss.

“If there was one game ball to be given in this evening, it is given to Odell Beckham,” Miles said.

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BATON ROUGE, La. -- On a beautiful, sun-drenched early September Seattle day in 2009, Steve Sarkisian coached his first game as Washington's head coach, beginning an unenviable task of turning around what had recently become a wretched program.

Opposite Sarkisian on the shores of Lake Washington that day, John Chavis was in his first game as defensive coordinator at LSU, tasked with turning around a defense that had grown unusually porous during an 8-5 2008 season, the worst season yet for head coach Les Miles in Baton Rouge.

If you were to judge from that day's outcome, one might believe it was Sarkisian who was headed for big success.

Sarkisian's Jake Locker-led offense piled up 478 yards and Washington hung close to the 11th-ranked Tigers, who prevailed 31-23, sending a downtrodden UW team to a 15th straight loss.

The two will match wits again Saturday in Baton Rouge and their stories have taken different turns since that day. It didn't take long for Chavis, the former Tennessee defensive coordinator, to make the Tigers' defense one of the best, if not the best in college football. Sarkisian has UW a long way from 15-game losing streaks, but at 20-19 in his fourth season, he is still got a ways to go to turn his team into a juggernaut.

Sarkisian, a former BYU quarterback who moved up the coaching ladder as an offense coordinator and quarterback guru at USC before going to Waashington, has replaced Locker, now a Tennessee Titan, with 3,000-yard passer Keith Price. Locker threw for 321 yards and two touchdowns in the 2009 game. LSU players are expecting Washington to try to similarly go after a young Tigers secondary with Price.

"We know Washington can throw the ball," said LSU safety Eric Reid after the Tigers' 41-14 win over North Texas Monday. "I know we can make those corrections and improvements [from the North Texas game]. We have to stay focused and I have to do better."

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BATON ROUGE -- After battling injuries early in his freshman season in 2011, LSU's Jarvis Landry struggled to get into the wide receiver rotation.

So he found a home as a special teams ace, providing the coverage units with 11 often bone-crunching tackles while delivering equally crushing blows as a blocker on return teams.

Now that Landry has become not only a likely starter, but quite possibly a go-to guy, at wide receiver, does that mean his days providing the Tigers with a special teams spark plug are over?

Don't count on it, head coach Les Miles said. For players like Landry, free safety Eric Reid and running back Alfred Blue who once made their mark on special teams, that role doesn't go away just because they've seen their every-down role increase.

"The responsibility of guys like Eric Reid [on special teams] is to make sure that spot you played is played like they would play it, or, they play it," Miles said. "If you looked at our national championship year [2007], Jacob Hester [LSU's leading rusher that season] ran down on kickoffs. Our starting safety ran down on kickoffs.

"It's important enough so that our veterans play those snaps."

The emphasis on special teams pays off for the Tigers, who had an All-American punter in Brad Wing last season, the most accurate kicker in the SEC in Drew Alleman and some of the nation's best returners in Tyrann Mathieu and Morris Claiborne (both now departed). A big part of that is the quality of the players LSU chooses to use on special teams.

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