Les Miles sports a whistle around his neck and a tightly fitted white cap, staring down at a folded up piece of paper in his left hand.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and members of the LSU football team are circled around their coach. Two small, orange cones lie on the turf, one on top of a painted white line and another just inside of it. In a booming voice, Miles calls out two names.
“Beckwith, Clapp,” he shouts. “Beckwith, Clapp.”
Junior linebacker Kendell Beckwith and redshirt freshman offensive lineman William Clapp walk into the middle of the circle and get down in their stances as their teammates cheer them on. The two competitors’ helmets are nearly touching as they wait for Miles’ whistle.
Each turn doesn’t take very long — a screech of the whistle, a clack of the pads, a brief struggle between the two players and another screech of the whistle. The energy created during the three-to-five second rounds of the Big Cat drill, though, is noticeable.
“The consistency and the intensity here is special,” said LSU offensive coordinator Cam Cameron. “I’ve never been around a place, at any level, that there’s this fierce competition on a daily basis. It makes everybody better.”
The Big Cat drill starts at the beginning of each spring practice. While Miles didn’t invent the core concept of the drill, it’s still a method to his famed madness.
“It’s a one-on-one drill,” Miles said. “We load it so that it’s not a big distance apart. Really, the contact is not a ram charge. We force an inside hand, helmet placement and leg drive. It’s something that I have been very consistent with over the years.
“Probably, the style of the way we set it up is original to LSU, but I’m sure everybody does something like that on a pretty regular basis.”
It’s not quite the Oklahoma drill, which former Oklahoma football coach Bud Wilkinson made famous. There’s no ball carrier or tackler in Big Cat. It’s all about the two players crouched inches apart, vying to drive the other one into the turf.
While Miles never officially declares a winner in any given turn between two players, the reaction of teammates circled around the drill tells the story. At the very least, the offensive and defensive players will argue about it at the end of each round.
Sophomore running back Leonard Fournette said Cameron gives all the encouragement the offense needs to win the drill.
“It’s coach Cam,” Fournette said. “Coach Cam says we have to beat [the defense]. We have to compete every day. We just went out there and had it on our mind. We were 7-0, as you can see, and things got out of hand. But that’s a part of football. That’s brothers trying to get better.”
Fournette’s claim to a 7-0 start to the drill came on that specific Tuesday, but as he alluded to, the drill did get a bit chaotic.
Sophomore defensive end Deondre Clark and junior offensive tackle Jevonte Domond squared up against each other in the sixth round of the drill. After some movement between the engaged players, the drill ultimately came to a stalemate.
As Domond continued his final push after Miles had blown the whistle, Clark reciprocated, starting a tussle of swinging arms. Domond’s helmet even came off in the scuffle
But players and coaches broke up the fight almost as quickly as it started, and Miles went back to shouting out names, only further animating the environment. Fournette jokingly shouted, “We won the fight, too,” as soon as it ended.
“We tried to start it off and get after it,” sophomore defensive tackle Davon Godchaux said with a smile. “People like [sophomore safety] Jamal Adams, he’s always intense when we go Big Cat. The other day we were just amped up. We were just ready to practice. That’s it. It’s LSU. That’s how we do.”
Players like Adams are equally as active in the drill, even when they’re not competing, motivating their fellow defenders and dishing out friendly smack talk when the round is done. While he doesn’t participate because he’s a quarterback, sophomore Brandon Harris said the liveliness of the drill is an important step to a successful practice.
“Sometimes, you need that,” Harris said. “You have some guys who just need to be pushed a little bit, where they can go out and have a great practice … I just like when guys go out and compete. It’s not all about fist fighting, this and that. It’s about another guy on defense pushing an offensive guy and an offensive guy pushing a defensive guy.
“That gets the morality of the team going, and we’re able to go out and have a great day.”
But as Big Cat ramps up and the players close in the circle around the competitors, Miles’ enjoyment of the drill is visible.
“It’s a manly way to start a practice,” Miles said. “I can tell you that.”
You can reach James Bewers on Twitter @JamesBewers_TDR.