Trash talk is cheap. At least to LSU senior defensive tackle Chad Lavalais. The only motivation he needs is a time – whatever time the Tigers’ next game is.
“That doesn’t motivate me,” Lavalais said of trash talking. “Come Saturday night, 7:00, when the whistle’s blown, that’s when I get going. Blabbering, I mean, that’s high school stuff. I could care less about that.”
With the way Lavalais has played this year, however, no one could blame him if he shot off at the mouth – at least a little bit.
The 6-foot-3, 289-pound Marksville, La., native has been in opposing teams’ backfields all season, even while facing occasional double teams. He has 35 tackles on the season, 11 of them for losses, and leads the team with six quarterback sacks. Those numbers still don’t tell the whole story, because his teammates say everyone rallies around his effort and passion.
“Chad is always fired up,” said fellow defensive tackle Kyle Williams. “Chad comes to play every week. Chad’s a competitor. It doesn’t matter who we play. He’s going to be pumped up for every game.”
Williams also said Lavalais is a great teacher who plays off of instinct and experience.
“Chad is the most unbelievable person,” Williams said. “He can, half the time, get down and tell what’s about to happen. And that just comes with experience and being out there competing all the time. You get weathered to these things, and he just looks and can see things that somebody that’s not as battle tested can’t see.”
Williams said Lavalais teaches everyone.
“Chad schools all of us,” Williams said. He tells us how to do it, he shows us how to do it and he sets the tone for us.”
LSU coach Nick Saban said Lavalais brings something that is sometimes hard to come by in college athletes- consistency.
After the 31-7 win over Auburn Saturday, Saban said he could not think of a game this year when Lavalais has not played well.
“Last year he was hurt a lot, but this year he’s been relentless in the way he’s competed and played,” Saban said at his Monday press luncheon. “He’s got tremendous quickness as a player and now he has pretty good strength to go with it. The combination of those two things, I think, make it difficult for people to block him and handle him inside.”
Lavalais was especially unblockable against Auburn, recording eight tackles, three of them for losses, and one sack. He was named Southeastern Conference Player of the Week on defense for that performance.
All those praises and accolades are not too bad for a guy who struggled to qualify for LSU.
Lavalais originally signed with LSU in 1998 and did again in 1999. He was able to qualify in 2000 and has not looked back since.
He started three games as a freshman, and has started every game he has played in since his sophomore year.
“The older you get and the more you play ball, you start to see things a lot clearer,” Lavalais said. “I can read stances a lot better than I did my first two years and I’ve just gotten older and wiser.”
He has also become more productive, already surpassing his career sack mark of four this year alone by two sacks.
“You just get better [at pass rushing] as the years go,” Lavalais said. “When you first get here, they teach you one thing and whatever they teach you, you try to polish it up and get better at it. I’m just using things I was taught my first two years and apply it each game. I take what I do on the practice field to the game. I felt over the years I probably didn’t do that until now.”
Lavalais has been so effective that he now may have the chance to play football as a job in the NFL. It is a possibility Lavalais has thought about, but he is more focused on his senior season at LSU and leading the Tigers to the highest level they can reach.
“It crossed my mind earlier in the season,” Lavalais said of the NFL. “But honestly, I try not to think about it. I get calls from so many people telling me I’m improving my draft stock. I try not to think about it. Everywhere I go, people say something. But I try to stay humble and not worry about it. I try to worry about Saturday nights and let that speak for me.”