LSU Tigers

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Five things we learned in LSU's spring game Saturday, a 37-0 win for White (first-team players) over Purple (various reserves):

1. Mettenberger adjusts: Quarterback Zach Mettenberger completed 12 of 19 passes for 236 yards and two touchdowns, all in the first half, after he evidently adjusted his own game plan.

Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron came up with the idea of allowing the quarterbacks to call their own plays in the spring game, so Mettenberger had some adjustments to make to his own calls.

"It was tough out there," the quarterback said. "Coach Cameron allowed us to call our own plays and it was the first time I've ever done that. It was kind of a slow start to get going, but we turned it around and had a pretty good day."

LSU coach Les Miles said the idea was to allow coaches to get a better feel for each quarterback's preference in certain situations and to allow the quarterbacks to gain a respect, and some insight, in the play-calling process.

"It allows you to see how the quarterback thinks," Miles said. "It allows you to see how he views the game plan, what he would call. I think it was a tremendous exercise."

It didn't get off to a rip-roaring start. Playing against a depleted second-team defense, the White offense managed a single field goal in its first three possessions before threw touchdown passes of 15 and 79 yards from Mettenberger to tight end Dillon Gordon and receiver Odell Beckham on consecutive possessions.

"We turned it around and had a pretty good day," Mettenberger said.

That goes especially for Beckham, who had two touchdown and 202 receiving yards on six catches, and Jarvis Landry, who added 132 yards on six catches.

2. Left out: LSU was without six injured first team players, as the secondary was depleted by injuries that kept out Jalen Collins, Jalen Mills and Ronald Martin. Offensive linemen Elliott Porter and Vadal Alexander also missed the game, as did defensive end Jermauria Rasco.

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BATON ROUGE, La. -- Here are things to know as LSU starts spring practice:

Practice dates: March 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23 (scrimmage), 25, 26 and 28. After spring break, resumes April 9, 11, 13 (scrimmage), 16, 18 and 20 (spring game).

What's new: Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron will install his new offense, and four new starters will man the defensive line.

What's old: The Tigers have eight returning starters on offense, led by quarterback Zach Mettenberger.

Offensive outlook:
Starters returning (8): QB Mettenberger, RB Jeremy Hill, FB J.C. Copeland, WR Jarvis Landry, WR Odell Beckham, LT La'el Collins (moved from left guard), LG Josh Williford (moved from right guard), RG Trai Turner, RT Vadal Alexander.

New starters: TE Dillon Gordon or Logan Stokes, C Elliott Porter. Key reserves -- QB Stephen Rivers, RBs Alfred Blue, Kenny Hilliard and Terrance Magee, FB Connor Neighbors, LT Jerald Hawkins, RG Fehoko Fanaika, RT Ethan Pocic, WR James Wright, Kadron Boone, John Diarse and Travin Dural, TE Travis Dickson.

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BATON ROUGE, La. -- LSU coach Les Miles took the podium for his pre-spring practice news conference Wednesday with a red left eye he said was the result of a case of pink eye.

It looked, however, like it might have been something else, like a symbolic black eye that came from a jab thrown by Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, or from a hook fired by a couple of surprisingly early departures from his team to the NFL, part of a whopping 13 NFL departures after a 10-3 season.

At any rate, Miles looked ready to put the pink eye, and any symbolic black eye, behind him as LSU begins drills on Thursday.

Here is what we learned from Miles on Wednesday:

1. La'el Collins will get first shot at left tackle: Collins was one of the highest-rated offensive tackles in the country coming out of high school in 2011, but he was the Tigers' starting left guard as a sophomore in 2012.

Miles confirmed that Collins, now a junior, will get his chance to slide over to tackle, but added that redshirt freshman Jerald Hawkins will get a look at the position as well. If Hawkins proves to be the better tackle candidate, Collins would move back inside.

Miles said if Collins indeed wins the left tackle spot, senior Josh Williford would be the likely choice to start at left guard. Junior college transfer Fehoko Fanaika came to LSU at 370 pounds, Miles said, and is more likely to play on the right side, where Trai Turner returns as the starting guard, Miles said.

2. Lamin Barrow gets first shot at MLB: Miles also indicated that Barrow would get the first shot at the vacant starting middle linebacker role, a spot vacated by Kevin Minter's early NFL departure.

Miles said Barrow " can do the job outside," where he excelled with 107 tackles at weak-side linebacker last season. If one of LSU's six Class of 2012 linebacker recruits or another veteran -- Miles mentioned junior D.J. Welter -- steps up at middle linebacker, Barrow can easily move back to his weak side spot.

3. Bolden, Maclin out: Miles said quarterback Rob Bolden, who made news when he transferred from Penn State to LSU last summer following the NCAA fallout from the Jerry Sandusky scandal, will not participate in spring practice after undergoing knee surgery in the off-season.

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BATON ROUGE. La. -- For Zach Mettenberger, seeing someone new is old.

New LSU offensive coordinator Cam Cameron met Mettenberger on Friday, the fifth such meeting Mettenberger has had with a new offensive coordinator since he began his college career.

He started with Mike Bobo at Georgia, then he moved to Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kan., and since moving to LSU he has worked with Steve Kragthorpe, Greg Studrawa and now Cameron in two-plus years.

New year, new coordinator, it would seem.

When he was introduced Friday, Cameron said he would have to respect the road his quarterback has been down already.

"I ran into Zach in the hallway yesterday," Cameron said. "The one thing I wanted to let him know was I'm coming in all ears at this point. Guys that play at this level have had great high school careers and are in their fourth or fifth year. There are certain things you like to do. There are certain things you know you are really good at."

It's not that Mettenberger will get to just run the offense at his whim. His junior season at LSU, during which he guided the Tigers to a 10-3 record, doesn't command that kind of freedom. In his first season as the Tigers' starter, he threw for 2,609 yards, 12 touchdowns, with seven interceptions, in starting all 13 games. While the numbers were respectable, they hardly lived up to the "Mett-siah" title some were attaching to him before he started a game for LSU.

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BATON ROUGE, La. -- When we last saw Cam Cameron, he was being fired as offensive coordinator of the NFL's Baltimore Ravens, taking the fall after an overtime loss to Beltway rival Washington with three games left in the season.

At the time, the buzz was that Baltimore’s offense was vanilla, had gotten away from what gave it early success and perhaps did not feature running back Ray Rice enough.

When we last saw Cameron in college football, he was coaching an Indiana Hoosiers team that put up big offensive numbers with Antwaan Randle El at quarterback, but lost twice as many games as it won because of a porous defense. That was 12 years ago.

The question now as Cameron prepares to begin his new job as LSU’s offensive coordinator is this: What Cam Cameron is LSU getting? The one that won with a dual-threat quarterback at Indiana? The one that mentored the Ravens offense for the first three-quarters of a Super Bowl-winning season?

Or how about the one who knew LSU coach Les Miles when they both were understudies of Bo Schembechler at Michigan? Or the one who helped mold Drew Brees and Philip Rivers with the San Diego Chargers?

Those who covered Cameron in previous jobs say you shouldn’t expect any of it.

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BATON ROUGE, La. -- LSU has eight new scholarship football players on its spring roster, with two players who are expected to be on the Tigers' spring roster facing a delay.

Quarterback Hayden Rettig and wide receiver Avery Johnson both got a late green light from the NCAA clearinghouse Wednesday, allowing them to join six other new players who enrolled for the spring semester.

"It's just a formality they had to go through," LSU sports information director Michael Bonnette said.

There were some nervous moments for LSU fans who recalled last January when highly-regarded quarterback recruit Gunner Kiel backed out of an LSU commitment in January and wound up signing with Notre Dame. Also, Johnson signed with LSU in 2012, but wound up not meeting academic requirements and he subsequently enrolled at Hargrave Military Academy for the fall semester. There were fears of more academic trouble for him.

Those fears now put to rest, LSU can look at an early enrollee class of eight.

They joined six other Tigers already on the roster: Tight end Logan Stokes and offensive guard Fehoko Fanaika (both junior college transfers) and high school recruits Anthony Jennings (quarterback), Ethan Pocic (offensive tackle), John Diarse (wide receiver) and Christian LaCouture (defensive tackle). All four graduated from their high schools early and were able to start a semester early.

Fanaika, like Johnson, initially signed with LSU last year, but had to return to junior college to complete his eligibility requirements.

While LSU brought in eight players, there were a handful of departures, most notably linebacker Luke Muncie, who started four games in 2012 before an illness forced him out of the lineup. He had 11 tackles and an interception.

Also no longer on the Tigers' roster are quarterback Jerrard Randall, wide receiver Paul Turner and offensive lineman Chris Davenport. Randall and Muncie will apparently transfer. Turner has reportedly transferred to Louisiana Tech and Davenport to Tulane.

Their departures leave LSU with unofficially 65 scholarship players on their roster, plenty enough to accommodate the 17 remaining committed players in the signing class plus three more. The NCAA limits teams to 85 scholarship players. If LSU were to add more than three players to its signing class, it would simply have whittle the scholarship counters to 85 by August.

BATON ROUGE, La. -- With No. 3 LSU leading winless Idaho by 28 points late in the third quarter of what was eventually a 63-14 Tigers win Saturday night at Tiger Stadium, it was the time in a game when one starts looking for backup quarterback Stephen Rivers to relieve starting Zach Mettenberger.

Not only did Mettenberger remain in the game for the Tigers, they came out in a shotgun formation with three wide receivers and the LSU quarterback went to work, delivering five crisp passes, all completions, for 77 yards to lead an 87-yard touchdown drive. His 46-yard bomb to Odell Beckham, a splendid rainbow that covered most of the yards in the air, was perhaps the prettiest pass in his three games as a starter.

The message on the drive was clear: LSU knows it needs to fine tune the passing game of Mettenberger if it's to compete for the national title it craves. It was out to get some of that work done.

"We wanted to throw some passes that he will be involved in," Miles said of the drive. "And we did."

Was he satisfied with what he saw?

"Yeah," Miles said. "Overall, there are ways to improve, certainly, but overall, he did well."

That Mettenberger played well into the fourth quarter on a night when he was 17-for-22 for 222 yards and two touchdowns in a 49-point win showed the urgency LSU senses in getting the junior who's just three starts into his college career and a week away from his SEC debut at Auburn, improved and ready for bigger challenges down the road (can you say Alabama?).

On this night, there were plenty of examples when improvement was needed. Like in the second quarter when, with LSU already up 14-0 and ready to deliver an early knockout blow at the Vandals' 6-yard line, Mettenberger forced a pass into coverage and right into the arms of Idaho safety Gary Walker, who took the gift 94 yards the other way to the Tigers 5, setting up an Idaho touchdown.

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