LSU Hiring Aman Anand as Special Teams Coach

Special teams matters

Brian Kelly took another step toward finalizing his 2025 coaching staff as he is reportedly hiring Aman Anand to help coach the special teams.

FootballScoop’s Zach Barnett was the first to report the news. It is not yet known if Anand’s official role will be an on the field special teams coordinator, or an analyst who happens to lead the special teams.

Anand comes to LSU after spending the 2024 season as the special teams coordinator for Grambling under former LSU receivers coach Mickey Joseph. Prior to his year at Grambling, Anand was the running backs coach and special teams coordinator at Texas Southern, and also has special teams coaching experience at Penn State and Baylor. Under Anand, Penn State led the Big 10 in blocked kicks and ranked in the top-10 nationally in kickoff coverage.

Grambling had one of the best special teams units in the FCS last season. The Tigers were either first or second in the SWAC across multiple special teams categories, and were ranked in the top-50 nationally.

Special teams hasn’t been the best unit in three years under Brian Kelly, but it also hasn’t been as good as it was under Greg McMahon. The special teams unit that Anand is inheriting is pretty solid though.

Damian Ramos is back for another year as the place kicker, Aeron Burrell was an all-SEC kickoff specialist, Zavion Thomas finally stabilized the punt returner position, and incoming transfer Barion Brown is quite literally the SEC’s greatest kickoff returner in league history with five returns for touchdowns in his career. The only spots that aren’t established are at long snapper now that Slade Roy is out of eligibility and punter, though LSU added Grant Chadwick out of the portal to assume the punting job.

Last season the unit was led by Bob Diaco, who was an analyst for the Tigers and recently accepted the position as linebackers coach for Bill Belichick at North Carolina.

Technically speaking LSU’s special teams unit was headed up by Slade Nagle who was listed as the tight ends coach/special teams coordinator, but the group was led by Diaco. Nagle is leaving LSU as he is following Willie Fritz to be the offensive coordinator at Houston, so the Tigers will need to hire a tight ends coach as well.

This matters because schools are only permitted 10 on the field assistants and LSU currently has nine. Does Anand get an on the field coaching role with the special teams? If so, that gives LSU 10 meaning they would not have an on the field tight ends coach. What most likely will happen is Anand is officially given a role of analyst but will lead the special teams, while Brian Kelly looks to fill that 10th on the field coaching spot to whoever the new tight ends coach ends up being.

We’ll have it all covered no matter what route Kelly decides to take.