Lonn Phillips Sullivan
Sep 3, 20206 min
By LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN
@LonnPhillips
Over the course of this off-season, LSU Odyssey has written 113 in depth pieces on the coaches, the roster, game by game breakdowns of 2020's two different schedules, news, player profiles....we even crafted a 200+ page Almanac geauxing so far deep into the current Tigers we dug our way to Lithuania and back....we thought that was it....come late August, we'd be playing football in Baton Rouge, well on our way to defending our G.O.A.T title.
We didn't anticipate needing to revise the entire schedule, every single breakdown on the roster, the departure of remarkably key leaders time and time again, but just like all of you dealing with the horrorshow deathtrip that is 2020, we're geauxin with the crazy flow and still trying to forecast this intriguing Tigers unit.
I've seen many announcing the death of Orgeron's Tigers, highlighting an uncertainty within the locker room which doesn't exist, I've heard everything from mutiny to salvation, but the reality is far less dramatic.
Yes, there were a small batch of LSU fans who embarrassed the team over the weekend, revealing nothing more than their obvious Bama fetish and a tinfoil cerebral lining; there were opt outs and transfers plenty, yet while many are writing the epitaph of Coach Orgeron's LSU squad 23 days until the season's start, I have news for you:
Kayshon Boutte is a five star who would start for Oklahoma, Clemson, Texas, Auburn, possibly Alabama and any other college in the country...at LSU, he's fighting for the 3rd WR spot AFTER Ja'Marr Chase's exit...
Arik Gilbert is a transcendental footballing colossus...more wide out than pure tight end and still big and bad enough to block viciously.
We don't just have one great highly touted running back locked in for a breakout season....we have three.
Losing Joe Burrow only to get the perfect leader for an Ensminger offense, Myles Brennan, who threw 64 touchdowns and 5,761 yards as a sophomore in high school...much like Joe, he's heard the doubt, he's been forgotten and he's been waiting his turn....seen this script before?
What can you say about losing your best defensive lineman, Tyler Shelvin, only to have Glen Logan, Apu Ika (a guy Saban still beats himself up for missing), Jacobian Guillory, Jaquelin Roy, Joseph Evans and Ali Gaye right in behind?
When discussing talent and pure skill, there may be no stronger squad in the country than LSU's starting lineups, even after the losses of Chase, Shelvin, Vincent, Farrell and Brooks.
The truth remains: this potential and promise is unproven on a college football field, and that fact looms as an ominous burden upon most Tiger fans and the LSU coaching staff, especially.
Teaching concepts again and again as players move positions, gain starting spot promotions and swap roles can be draining on a staff, yet the depth on our coaching staff has made up for this big time, guys like Scott Linehan Russ Callaway, Christian LaCoutoure, TEs Coach / GA Derek Shay, Keith Sanchez and Alex Osbourne helping assist the coaches in mobilizing these young players.
Never before will a season's success depend so inherently upon Tiger freshmen and if there had to be a pandemic, if there had to be opt outs, transfers, protests etc then there's no freshman class more equipped to handle it than LSU's 2020 group of debutante.
They've proven their resilience and ability to buy in already:
At first, Strength & Conditioning Coach Tommy Moffitt said the freshmen showed up to spring practices way out of shape, but a month later he was hailing the freshmen as the program's "most physically impressive group since he'd been there"....and Moffitt has been at LSU since 2000.
Freshmen O-linemen Marcus Dumervil and Marlon Martinez (St. Thomas Aquainas teammates) were called "the hardest working freshmen I've ever seen" by Offensive Line Badass James Cregg;
Although he's returning from a nasty injury which red-shirted his freshman campaign last year, Kardell Thomas possesses a dominant physical omnipotence along the line and should earn time;
Eli "Pick Six" Ricks, the #1 corner in America, has transcendental LSU Legend written all over his future; superstar CB/WR Dwight "Nudie" McGlothern possesses the same profile of Eli, with an additional offensive playmaking ability;
The D-line has massive questions and those answers need to come from the freshmen: there's two current specimen with a potential to become high octane contributors in 2020, DE's Phillip Webb and B.J Ojulari, their success necessary for LSU's defensive success;
Elsewhere, Bama defector Eric Taylor #96 is a bruising, calculating and versatile DL; there's the interior symmetry to Webb & Ojulari's Georgia-native edge rush in Louisiana Boys Jacobian Guillory and Jaquelin Roy;
Though Ali Gaye isn't a freshman technically, you may as well call him one, and yet the prospects of facing such a man on a field may feel akin to looking into the Eyes of Saruman;
Josh White and Antoine Sampah have impressed Orgeron and Pelini at linebacker just as much as #21 Jordan Toles' 222 lb thickness or #22 Zaven Fountain's Marrero-born greatness have tickled frontal lobes....and that's not all.
LSU also hold a bunch of proven sophomores who made it through a blazing 2019 gauntlet, young mennow poised to become the true standout leaders and contributors of 2020:
Remember all the sophomores still on roster who started games last year: Tyrion Davis-Price, Mo Hampton, Damone Clark (actually started Bama game), Dare Rosenthal, Cordale Flott, Apu Ika, Chris Curry, then think of the sophomores who played in spots: Jay Ward, Raydarious Jones, John Emery Jr, Trey Palmer, Jaray Jenkins...
We have a solid group of key young players who witnessed how a championship was won only months ago...and when you realize how only 12 months ago many mainstream college football fans had no clue who Ja'Marr Chase, Joe Burrow, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Justin Jefferson, K'Lavon Chaisson, Lloyd Cushenberry or Damien Lewis were, then you understand just what transformation can be possible within this program.
...that is exactly how LSU became champions: the struggle against doubt, the weight of sudden profound responsibility, the crafted greatness completely taking every rival by such dominating victorious surprise...the romanticism of LSU's run just couldn't be denied....and yet it still hasn't ended.
Still, the execution on the field and the atmosphere our coaching staff cultivates will have the final say this campaign....every day, without using words, each player will ask the coaches "are you in the trenches with me today? Are you in the foxhole next to me?"
Even with all the young players, this Tigers unit still have leaders: Jabril Cox, Jacoby Stevens, Glen Logan, Chris Curry, Damone Clark, Derek Stingley, Austin Deculus and that's not counting our starting quarterback who is an expected leader regardless of experience, LSU has flickers of experience at least.
This isn't a season for the feint of heart...your favorite player, our starting quarterback, our head coach all could be forced to isolate due to being exposed...I'm not trying to scare you by saying this, I'm trying to prepare you for the unexpected....if you haven't received that memo already after your team loses Ja'Marr Chase, Tyler Shelvin, Kary Vincent Jr, Neil Farrell, Marcel Brooks, T.K McLendon, Justin Thomas, Jamal Pettigrew and Eric Monroe, the Peter Parrish transfer to Memphis, the Donte Starks suspension....on top of losing 20 players to the NFL Draft, seeing half of your team exposed to Covid this summer, attempted character assassinations of our head coach by SEC rivals using lowdown media avenues, the Guice allegations by two victims, the disturbing reaction from a small group of "fans" to our teams' epic protest, and of course the frenetic pace of understandable but straight up sad opt outs and transfers...
With all of the upheaval, there's an unproven group of scintillating, intriguing talent ready to prove the critics wrong for a second straight season....and we're all in.
GEAUX TIGERS!
GEAUX TIGERS
BY LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN
COPYRIGHT 2020 UNINTERRUPTED WRITINGS INC LLC
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