The LSU football team has hired Alabama linebackers coach Kevin Steele as its new defensive coordinator, Sports Information director Michael Bonnette confirmed via Twitter on Tuesday afternoon.
“This is a great hire for us,” said LSU coach Les Miles in a news release. “Kevin has had a very successful coaching career, one that has seen him coach alongside some of the top coaches in the game. He won a national title with Tom Osborne at Nebraska, coached with Bobby Bowden at Florida State and coached in the NFL with one of the great defensive coaches in Dom Capers.
“He has a great defensive mind and he’s an outstanding recruiter. He knows our players and our system and his knowledge of the Southeastern Conference and the SEC Western Division makes him a great fit. We are very excited … Kevin will be joining our staff.”
Former LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis took the same position at Texas A&M following the Tigers’ 31-28 Music City Bowl loss to Notre Dame on Dec. 30. Chavis and Steele are both from Dillon, South Carolina, and played college football together at Tennessee.
Steele graduated from Tennessee before working as a linebackers coach at New Mexico State and Oklahoma State. He was linebackers coach for Nebraska from 1989-1994, during which the Cornhuskers won one national championship.
Following a stint with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, Steele returned to the college ranks as Baylor’s head coach from 1999-2002. The Bears went 9-36 under Steele, featuring a 1-31 mark in Big 12 play.
Current LSU defensive line coach Brick Haley, who was rumored to be a potential candidate for the job, served as Steele’s defensive
coordinator and linebackers coach at Baylor for three seasons.
Steele served as executive head coach at Florida State, where he earned Rivals.com’s 2005 National Recruiter of the Year, from 2003-2006 before starting the first of two stints with Alabama. He was named the defensive coordinator for the Crimson Tide in 2007.
He then took the defensive coordinator job at Clemson, where he held the same title from 2009-11. Steele returned to Alabama in 2013 as the team’s director of player personnel, and he became linebackers coach in 2014.
Steele’s most recent game as a defensive coordinator was the 2012 Orange Bowl, during which Clemson surrendered 70 points and nearly 600 total yards in a blowout loss against West Virginia.