“Shut up, freshman” has quietly become the mantra of the LSU tight end room in wake of freshman Foster Moreau’s antics.
In the words of junior linebacker Kendell Beckwith, Moreau is a “character.”
From interviewing fellow Tigers with bananas and apples to walking into their apartments without warning, Moreau’s personality can test even his most patient teammates.
But Moreau never fails to entertain on and off the field, giving the Tigers much-needed comedic relief in the midst of their brutal November Southeastern Conference stretch.
“All of the tight ends are clowns, but he really brings it to another level,” said junior tight end Colin Jeter. “He’s a great teammate … He’s just a clown. He’s a freshman, and we enjoy having him in our room.”
Despite LSU coach Les Miles’ inclusion of freshmen in leadership roles throughout his tenure, Moreau inspired a different reaction by tight end coach Steve Ensminger.
Ensminger reinstituted the policy that freshmen can’t speak in the meeting room after Moreau demonstrated his tendency to always have something to say.
“We have to tell him to just shut up a lot,” Jeter said. “He’s one of those guys that can just talk all day. He’s always making jokes. He’s always just trying to just dog somebody. We always have fun in the tight end room. We like to bring it back to him.”
And in the film room, the rest of the tight ends achieve just that: payback.
For every mistake the unit or Ensminger finds on tape, the offending tight end has to run a gasser, a running drill also known as a suicide.
Although Moreau loves to point out other players’ mistakes, Jeter said the rest of the tight ends team up to make sure he runs the most gassers after practice.
“We as a tight end room like to team up on him and make sure Coach Ensminger sees every little mistake that he makes just to get him back,” Jeter said. “We think he’s learned a little bit from that, but he still tests us some days.”
After unlacing his cleats and slipping into his Nike slides, the 6-foot-5, 261-pound tight end sneaks into media availability and patiently waits for the melee of questions to die down around Beck with.
Holding up a half-eaten apple on a stick or a taped banana as a recorder, Moreau jumps in with a question like, “How has your play been affected by the lack of Blue Bell ice cream?”
Beckwith, a common target of Moreau’s impromptu interviews, laughs before responding, “It’s been [negatively] affected a lot. I’m the Blue Bell king. I love vanilla. Buttered pecan’s pretty good. They really need to put Blue Bell back out though.”
Moreau is a sports administration major, but his routine interviews gave Beckwith
another idea.
“I wonder if he’s going to school for it,” Beckwith said. “I see he walks around here and plays reporter a lot. We just enjoy it. I don’t get annoyed about it at all. It’s just a joke to me.”
His clowning around is
well-known throughout the team, but it doesn’t compare to the New Orleans native’s trolling capabilities outside the football operations building a fact sophomore wide receiver Malachi Dupre is well aware of as Moreau’s neighbor.
“Around the team, you can’t really get the sense of how much he is a clown as much as I do living by him,” Dupre said. “He’s my neighbor in our apartments, and he’s probably in my apartment more than he’s in his own. It’s to the point now, our backs can be turned and our door will open and we don’t even have to look because we know it’s
Foster.”
His personality takes center stage off the field, while Moreau’s play on the gridiron speaks for itself as he helps junior tight end DeSean Smith and Jeter fill in for the loss of senior tight end Dillon Gordon to a season-ending injury.
Moreau has played in all of the Tigers’ seven games, including his first career start against Syracuse University on
Sept. 26.
“He’s really impressed me coming in as a freshman and understanding the offense and what we need to do,” Jeter said. “He’s improving every week. He does a great job for us in the blocking game, goal line and even in the passing game. He hasn’t caught any balls yet, but he does a great job of running routes and getting open.”