Rule no. 1 when talking about spring football - don’t overreact to the Spring game. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about it - because it’s all we’ll have to talk about until Fall practice.
Based on what I’ve seen, this team has all the ingredients to be special in 2023.
Why do I believe this?
Looking back, there’s a handful of teams I can recall thinking had the potential to be very special before the season started. 2007, 2011 and 2019 were all teams I recall thinking had the potential to be special before the season.
The 2012 team was certainly a loaded roster and highly ranked in the pre-season, and there was optimism around Mettenberger taking over. But after the 21-0 shellacking in the BCS National Championship at the hands of Nick Saban and the gut-wrenching dismissal of Tyrann Mathieu - the team didn’t have the vibe of a team about to do something special.
I had a hunch that 2013 might be special - and it was in some ways. But I had my reservations after the mass exodus of NFL talent that occurred in the offseason. LSU’s star running back, Jeremy Hill getting into a bar fight before the season didn’t help either with the perception.
There are five things I’m looking for when I’m trying to figure out if an LSU team has the potential to be a title contender. None of them have anything to do with if the team has a lot of talented, fast athletes running around. This is LSU we’re talking about. LSU hasn’t fielded a team over the past 20 years that didn’t have a lot of talented athletes capable of big plays.
- The core nucleus of starters returning from a ten-win team
- A capable veteran quarterback
- Plenty of depth
- Few players departing with remaining eligibility that aren’t early-round picks
- A quiet offseason
As for the first one - check that box. LSU returns 17 starters from its 63-7 beat down of Purdue in the Citrus Bowl including ten on offense to notch its tenth win of the season.
LSU returns players who accounted for 94 percent of its rushing yards, 3763 of its 3,770 passing yards, and three of its top four receivers. The Tigers also return four of its five starters on the offensive line including Freshman All-American Will Campbell and Freshman All-SEC offensive tackle Emery Jones.
And with seven returning defensive starters from the Citrus Bowl including Freshman All-American linebacker Harold Perkins, there’s plenty of returning talent on both sides of the ball.
Not to mention, every single specialist returns as well.
The second thing I look for is a capable veteran quarterback. LSU seems to have just that this year with Jayden Daniels coming off a season where he had 3,798 total yards and 28 total touchdowns. However, the gaudy stats and ten wins don’t mean there weren’t things Daniels needed to work on. Daniels was good last season but struggled with holding on the ball too long, indecisiveness, conservative check downs and being a bit too quick to tuck the ball and run.
But these are all coachable things he can improve upon.
Enter the Spring game. Daniels showed he may have taken that next step to correct these issues. He was decisive and stretched the field completing ten of his 11 passes for 168 yards and a pair of touchdowns. At just under 17 yards per completion, he definitely was pushing the ball downfield.
And as for getting happy feet and taking off too early? On 13 dropbacks, he only took off to run once for a 19-yard gain.
Yes, his throwing technique still looked unorthodox and his accuracy sometimes forces receivers to make athletic grabs. But, never enough to prevent him from being effective - just look at the acrobatic grab Kyren Lacy made for a 70-yard touchdown on the first pass of the Spring game.
Don’t overreact to a Spring game. But, also don’t be surprised if Daniels is a dark horse Heisman candidate.
“He’s committed to being the best quarterback in the country,” Kelly said after the Spring game. “There’s just a different presence to him.”
Depth seems to be something that often gets overlooked. Most evaluators like to look at the starting 22, gauge how good they are and predict the success of the team accordingly.
But you need more than 22 good players for a special season. The best example I can recall is the 2011 season. LSU didn’t have a great quarterback but had two capable veterans and a young Zach Mettenberger on the bench.
When Jordan Jefferson got suspended for his involvement in a bar fight, there was little to no drop-off when Jarrett Lee took over. And when Jarrett Lee looked like a deer in headlights in Tuscaloosa, Jefferson was right there to save the day.
It wasn’t just quarterback. That team had depth everywhere. Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham, T-Bob Hebert, La’El Collins, Barkevious Mingo, Ron Brooks, Tharold Simon, Craig Loston, Josh Williford were all good players who weren’t full-time starters.
Heck, the team even had two full-backs rotating in and that position was on the verge of extinction.
Looking at the 2023 Tigers I see lots of good players who might not be starters. Garrett Nussmeier may be the best backup quarterback in the SEC next season. He’s looked very sharp at the end of last season and again in the Spring Game completing five of his eight passes for 138 yards and a pair of touchdowns. But Make no mistake - It’s Daniels’ team.
LSU’s offensive line should be greatly improved next season with four starters returning. But, this year there will be good players who won’t crack the starting lineup. Where does Maryland grad transfer lineman Mason Lunsford fit in? Can five-star freshman Lance Heard crack the starting lineup? Does Charles Turner retain his starting spot after starting 13 games last year, or will Marlin Martinez take that spot after a strong showing in the bowl game and Spring game?
These are all fantastic questions and exhibit the kind of depth Brian Kelly has built in just two seasons. I could go rambling on with just about every position group naming guys who might not start with the potential to be very good players.
But suffice to say, that “bubble gum and paper clips,” roster we talked about all last season is a thing of the past barring some catastrophic offseason attrition.
Which brings me to my next point. Teams that avoid losing too much talent they should have retained tend to struggle. We’re talking about players who declared early for the draft that were not getting drafted in the first three rounds or losing contributing players to the transfer portal.
There will always be a handful of these guys - especially in the transfer portal era of college football. But ideally, you want it to be a manageable number.
Would keeping late-round draft picks with remaining eligibility such as Anthony Bradford, Jaquelin Roy, Kayshon Boutte, Mekhi Garner and Mike Jones have helped? Certainly, but finding someone to replace their production should be doable.
But, keeping guys like Jayden Daniels around who could have been drafted in the 4th or 5th round is a huge deal.
The only potential starter we saw leave for the transfer portal was DeMario Tolan. And, Oregon State Transfer linebacker Omar Speights could very well be an upgrade. And with Harold Perkins and Greg Penn returning, the linebacker position will be just fine.
The final ingredient to a special season on the bayou is a quiet offseason. Things happen every year of course, but you have to avoid the bombshell headline like “Ryan Periloux has been dismissed from the team.”
Will we get that? Only time will tell.
But at this point, 10-2 is starting to feel a lot less like the floor and more like a disappointment for this team.
