LSU football’s annual Spring Game was the public introduction of many new faces to LSU’s team, as well as a look at players like Garrett Nussmeier and Kyren Lacy, who’ll be replacing last year’s stars who are now off to the NFL.
All things told, many things about the team on the field Saturday were different from the team in the fall.
One thing that wasn’t, though, was the dominant performance of the offense, and, conversely, the struggles of the defense.
READ MORE: LSU defense struggles early, shows glimpses of young talent in Spring Game
The offense vs. defense scrimmage came to a final score of 34-34, courtesy of an inventive scoring format that rewarded the defense for its big plays.
That score, however, wasn’t indicative of the large gap between the first team offense and the first team defense.
Nussmeier, expected to take the reins from the departed Heisman winner and likely top-three NFL draft pick Jayden Daniels, was sharp from the start.
He carried over the momentum from his dominant performance in the ReliaQuest Bowl in January, finishing a perfect 7-for-7 on his throws for 187 yards and two touchdowns.
Granted, Nussmeier was the beneficiary of an LSU defense that busted open on several occasions while clearly still grasping a new system, but he took advantage of his opportunity. Six of those seven completions were for 10 or more yards, with gains of 42, 45 and 59.
Head coach Brian Kelly said the key to those big plays through the air was the dominance of the offensive line in the running game, providing balance that the team will need this year to maintain its explosive offense.
“It starts at the line of scrimmage,” Kelly said. “If you can’t win the line of scrimmage with this offense, you will not be explosive… that was a good first step.”
Taking out sack yardage, LSU had 110 yards on the ground with an average of 4.1 yards per carry. Sophomore Kaleb Jackson led the way there with 59 yards and a touchdown.
“What I liked about Kaleb was patience today,” Kelly said. “He had been a guy that had a tendency to bounce out and bleed out to the sideline instead of just hitting the thing north and south.”
LSU’s starting receiving group was once again the three main returners: Lacy, Chris Hilton Jr. and Aaron Anderson. However, as has been the case all spring, transfers CJ Daniels and Zavion Thomas, along with many others, rotated in.
Kelly stated earlier in the week that as many as seven receivers could be consistent contributors to the team, and that seemed to hold true in the Spring Game.
Lacy had a catch for 59 yards, Thomas had two for 52 yards and Daniels had two for 33 yards, showing off his physicality both at the point of the catch and after the catch. Kelly was particularly happy with the performance of his two transfer receivers.
“I think both those guys [Thomas and Daniels] came in maybe trying to do a little too much and have kind of settled in nicely and will be really solid players for us,” Kelly said.
The only snag for the Tigers offensively came when the first team offense departed from the field. That gave way to a second team offensive line unit that allowed seven sacks.
The limited time to throw contributed in part to so-so performances by reserve quarterbacks AJ Swann and redshirt freshman Rickie Collins, who split reps and are both battling to be the primary backup.
Neither completed better than 50% of their passes, with Swann, the transfer from Vanderbilt, looking particularly inaccurate. Collins showed off his speed running in and outside of the pocket, but was also relatively unimpactful through the air.
Colin Hurley, the early enrollee freshman, provided a spark when he came in during the game’s final quarter. On just two drives, he managed to throw for 77 yards and a touchdown, including a deep bomb to Khai Prean for a 64-yard touchdown.
He uncorked another pretty deep pass to RJ Willis a few plays later, but Willis couldn’t come down with it along the left sideline.
Generally, the second-team offense looked markedly less organized than the starters, with receivers scrambling to figure out pre-snap alignment on more than one occasion.
