As spring practice for football commences, Brian Kelly and the rest of the coaching staff are getting players accustomed to how they run things, adjusting to a new offense and defense, and learning to play with the freshmen and recruits.
So far, practices have ran more efficiently run and coaching staff gained a tighter handle on the players compared to previous seasons.
Dysfunction was a major issue over the past two years, which was reflected in games as LSU struggled to pick plays and get to the quarterbacks on time repeatedly.
“It’s all about accountability,” Myles Brennan said. “His [Kelly] whole thing is about being accountable and doing your job. If everyone does their job, we’ll be just fine.”
“If you’re late, you’re going to pay the consequences. If you don’t show up for something, tutoring, class, everything’s mandatory, and there is no getting around it.”
Tight end and wide receiver Jack Bech spoke of ‘SWAT’ teams that were employed by the coaching staff. Kelly appointed 10 players at the beginning of spring to take a lead and make sure everyone is being held accountable.
The team also takes daily questionnaires on how they are feeling about on and off the field performance. Accountability is going to be a word you hear often this year with Kelly’s staff.
As for on the field, competition is strong. Many feel that the quarterback competition is a two-man race between Brennan and Jayden Daniels. All four quarterbacks including Walker Howard and Garrett Nussmeier have shined at their own times.
During the last practice on Saturday morning, Howard, the early-enrollee from Lafayette, looked unstoppable. Granted, he was playing against walk-ons and guys lower on the depth chart, but he easily had the best throw of the day on a 60-yard touchdown pass to transfer receiver Kyren Lacy.
“I feel like I’m doing good so far,” Daniels said in his first media appearance. “You know, coming in learning the playbook off the fly, in the quarterback room we’ve been bouncing everything off of each other, you know it’s a healthy competition. I asked Myles questions, Myles asks me questions, we bounce stuff off of each other. You know just building that relationship.”
Another major story line so far this off-season has been the surprising performance of true freshman offensive tackle Will Campbell. Campbell comes in from Neville High School in Monroe as a player who jumped between being a four and a five star recruit throughout the process.
He was expected to play well and be a cornerstone for LSU during this rebuild, but no one expected it to happen as fast as it has. Campbell is getting a lot of reps with the starters at practice at left tackle and has more than held his own. During one-on-one drills against the defensive line, he was paired against sophomore Saivion Jones for a fun battle.
Jones spoke highly of Campbell after practice a few days after that drill. During the team’s offense versus defense drills on Saturday, Campbell was the starting left tackle for the offense and won reps against sophomore Maason Smith coming off of the edge.
The main question still remaining for this team is the depth at cornerback. A position that the Tigers were already thin at, it took another hit when Jarrick Bernard-Converse suffered an injury that will keep him out until June. Kelly said he knows they are weak at the position and will possibly look back into the transfer portal for some more incoming talent.
