The offense lights it up while the defense still has much work to do.
LSU was able to showcase its 2024 squad at the National L Spring Game at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge on April 13.
The scrimmage featured a unique scoring format for the defense as points were awarded for forcing a turnover, fourth-down stops, sacks, tackles for loss and pass breakups. The game ended in a 34-34 tie with the offense scoring four touchdowns and a pair of field goals.
“I want to see guys handle this as ‘I’m locked in and focused, I’m treating this like a real game opportunity’,” LSU head coach Brian Kelly said.
Here are my observations from the press box at Tiger Stadium from Saturday’s spring game.
The passing attack is still as explosive as ever
Despite losing the trio of Jayden Daniels, Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas, LSU’s passing attack isn’t going anywhere.
LSU’s quarterbacks passed for 371 yards and three touchdowns. Garrett Nussmeier highlighted the passing attack as he was a perfect 7-for-7 with 187 passing yards and two touchdowns on a 45-yard throw to Zavion Thomas and a 59-yard pass to Kyren Lacy. Moreover, he averaged a whopping 26.71 yards per passing attempt as well.
“I thought he did a really nice job. The throw as he stepped up in the pocket was quintessential in terms of what he’s able to do. He keeps his eyes down the field. As he steps up in the pocket, he sees an open receiver down the field. I thought he was clean today. I thought he was efficient. I thought he did the things that we expected him to do.”
True freshman Colin Hurley, who just recently turned 17 years old, threw a beautiful 64-yard touchdown strike to redshirt freshman Khai Prean for the final touchdown of the game.
However, the biggest question mark about the passing attack is the backup quarterback role.
The backup quarterback battle has been fought between redshirt freshman Rickie Collins and Vanderbilt transfer AJ Swann. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of questions that still need to be answered as both quarterbacks combined to complete 10 of 21 passes for 107 yards.
Rumble, Young Man Rumble!
The rushing attack as a whole didn’t highlight the offense and at times nonexistent. However, individually, Kaleb Jackson looked like he was LSU’s No.1 running back after his performance.
Jackson rushed for 59 yards on 14 carries and scored the game’s only rushing touchdown on a 32-yard touchdown scamper untouched through the line of scrimmage.
“What I liked about Kaleb was his patience today,” Kelly said. “He was a lot more patient on his running fits. He was a lot more north and south. He had been a guy that had a tendency to bounce out and bleed out to the sideline instead of just hitting the thing north and south, and that was really encouraging. With his physicality and speed, if he hits those things north and south as you saw on the goal line piece of our scrimmage, he can crease a defense.”
If LSU wants to keep its explosiveness in the fall, it needs to develop a strong rushing attack. If Jackson can keep the momentum going, the Tigers will have an elite balanced attack that is operating behind arguably the best offensive line in college football.
“We have been striving for controlling the line of scrimmage, running the football, and that will set up the explosiveness within this offense,” Kelly said. “It is not going to be Jayden Daniels, Malik Nabers, Brian Thomas. It is going to have a different look to the explosiveness. You can still be explosive, but it starts at the line of scrimmage.”
The defense shows promise upfront but the secondary still needs work
There was some good and bad from the defense on Saturday.
First, let’s talk about the good.
LSU’s front seven looked great as it recorded 13 tackles for a loss, seven sacks and held the offense’s rushing attack to just two yards per rush.
Junior college transfer Shone Washington and true freshman Gabriel Reliford were the top performers for the defensive line.
Washington recorded five tackles (one solo) with 1.5 tackles for a loss and a sack.
Reliford had the best individual performance on the defensive line as he wreaked havoc coming off the edge. He finished with four total tackles (three solo), 3.4 tackles for loss and two sacks.
“Gabe was going up against a freshman, and he’s a freshman,” Kelly said. “I get that, but now, we’re going to have to take Gabe and we’re going to have to get Gabe some reps against Will Campbell. We’re going to have to get him up against Emery Jones because he’s earned that now.”
The linebackers also solid day as well, especially Harold Perkins. Perkins finished with three tackles and a sack.
“I thought Harold Perkins did a really nice job working in the box and seeing counters,” Kelly said. “We were purposeful in running the ball at him, making him defend, get over the top of the veer block of the tackle, getting it back out and forcing to tackle that so that was good to see.”
Now let’s get to the bad.
The secondary struggled to stop the aerial attack as all three passing touchdowns were 45 yards or over. Moreover, each of those touchdowns was thrown to a wide-open receiver due to busts in the coverage. It also should be mentioned that the offense wasn’t targeting specific weaknesses on LSU’s defense according to Kelly, making this dilemma even more concerning
Although a good chunk of the 371 passing yards were allowed when most of the upperclassmen were in, the first-team defense still allowed Nussmeier to go 7-for-7 with 187 yards and two touchdowns.
Kelly mentioned after the spring game, that in one of those coverage busts, they were supposed to be in cover two but they ran cover three instead.
“You can’t have those kind of mistakes,” Kelly said. “They’re unacceptable and that’s going to cost you a chance on the field.”
Kelly also mentioned that the secondary also just got beat.
“We were in a coverage over the top and we just got flat out beat,” Kelly said. “Sometimes, you have to look at who we have and what kind of situations do we put him in when he is against an elite receiver.”
However, it is spring ball, so LSU has multiple opportunities from now until September to get those mistakes corrected and identify the right personnel to win your ballgames.
It also should be noted that this group is under a whole new defensive staff so it may take a little time before everything gets clicking. I knew the offense would look better going in because of these two reasons: they have virtually been under the same offensive staff for the past three years as well and the fact that Baker did not want to implement any of his defensive strategies on national television so USC can go back and look at before its game against LSU on Sept. 1.
However, the fact that the secondary looked confused on basic coverages lets me believe that LSU will be playing mostly freshmen and sophomores in the secondary because they are trying to focus on its youth.
When he comes back from injury, cornerback Zy Alexander will join safeties Jardin Gilbert and Major Burns as the the only upperclassmen to get significant playing time in my opinion.
The only other upperclassmen, Sage Ryan, who started at safety in the spring game, struggled mightily during the game. Because of his performance in a game-like atmosphere, it wouldn’t surprise me if he gets beaten out by true freshman Dashawn McBryde who has a unique skill set of size, strength and speed.
Despite having a below-average day as a unit, two players had great individual performances: safeties Austin Ausberry and Kylin Jackson.
Ausberry, the son of LSU deputy athletic director Verge Ausberry, led the defense in tackles with seven. Jackson, who is the No. 2 behind Burns at the STAR position, arguably had the best performance among the defensive backs with three tackles (one solo), a sack and a pass breakup.