Kevin Minter and Jalen Mills apologized to each other this week.
Minter, LSU’s intense junior starting middle linebacker, let his emotions get the best of him, and, for that, he said he was sorry. For Mills, the freshman cornerback who was thrown into the fire at the start of the season, there was nothing else to say.
With a minute to go in a game where he was dominated by the Tigers’ secondary, Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron took the snap from his 28-yard line. He saw Mills running straight at him from the edge, past freshman running back T.J. Yeldon, who was feigning a block.
If anything went through McCarron and Yeldon’s heads at that instant, it would’ve been, “Perfect.”
As soon as Mills brushed by, Yeldon released into the flat. Mills should’ve gone with him. Instead, he continued barrelling after McCarron, who flipped it over the young defensive back’s head to Yeldon. Minter never caught Yeldon — no one did — but he did lay into Mills.
“That’s tough love,” Minter said. “… It’s something to learn from, for both of us, so we’re just going to move past this.”
Mills, who’s started every game this year, made a young mistake at the worst moment possible — one that’s surprisingly uncharacteristic of this secondary that’s quietly one of the best in the country.
Tyrann Mathieu’s departure just prior to the season left a void on the left side of the Tigers’ secondary. Outside of veteran junior starters Eric Reid, Tharold Simon and Craig Loston, only one defensive back, junior safety Rockey Duplessis, was an upperclassman. Six were fresh out of high school.
Mills won the job and has since made the fourth-most tackles on the team (38) and has picked off two passes and defensed six more for a secondary that ranks No. 2 in the NCAA behind Michigan. Other inexperienced contributors include redshirt freshmen Micah Eugene and Jalen Collins.
“They’ve gotten much better throughout the year,” Reid said of the young defensive backs. “They aren’t playing like freshmen anymore.”
It was unfortunate then that Mills made the fatal, contention-crushing mistake at the end of the secondary’s best game of the season. The 165 yards it allowed McCarron wasn’t its fewest, but considering the opponent and the situation, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Still, Reid says it was an easy mistake to make, recalling the part he played as a freshman in a Mark Ingram touchdown against the Tide, after which former middle linebacker Kelvin Sheppard got on him like Minter did Mills.
“Everybody makes mistakes, that one was just in a very critical part of the game,” Reid said before adding with lit-up eyes and a smile, “But it’s a mistake I’m sure he’ll never make again.”
‘Everybody makes mistakes, that one was just in a very critical part of the game. But it’s a mistake I’m sure he’ll never make again.’
