By Hunt Palmer
No position LSU group garnered more discussion in the offseason than the defensive line.
It was an obvious need in the transfer portal and an obvious question entering the season. On Monday head coach Brian Kelly praised the group after four games.
“I think, a lot of the off-season was, ‘what are you going to do with the defensive line?,” Kelly said. “They’ve been a strength for us. (Defensive line coach) Bo (Davis) has done a great job of making sure those guys are gap conscious and fundamentally sound and getting off the ball.”
Relying too heavily on numbers can be dicey early in a college football season. Level of competition varies greatly across the country. Lopsided scores and yardage totals can skew reality to a degree.
Some of the numbers do line up with Kelly’s contention that the defense is making strides and developing young talent.
Big plays have been a massive problem for LSU. In fact, they’ve been a bigger problem for LSU than literally every other team in the FBS. The Tigers are the only team to allow three runs of over 60 yards this season. There are 134 teams competing this year. The numbers don’t need to be manipulated in that respect. Busted assignments and missed tackles must be cleaned up.
LSU is one of four teams in the FBS to allow three 50-plus yard runs. Let’s compare the four defenses and their rush defense totals to date.
Appalachian State: East Tennessee State 183 yards, Clemson 252 yards, East Carolina 98 yards, South Alabama 320 yards. National rush defense rank: No. 120 (212.75 ypg)
Ball State: Missouri State 62 yards, Miami 243 yards, Central Michigan 335 yards. National rush defense rank: No. 122 (213.33 ypg)
Florida International: Indiana 234 yards, Central Michigan 178 yards, Florida Atlantic 259 yards, Monmouth 179 yards. National rush defense rank: no. 120 (212.75 ypg)
LSU: Southern Cal 69 yards, Nicholls 150 yards, South Carolina 243 yards, UCLA 14 yards. National rush defense rank: No. 47 (119 ypg)
See the disconnect?
I’ll grant quite a few things here. First, the expectation at LSU is not to be compared to Appalachian or Ball State. USC threw the ball for a ton of yards and got points when they had to have them. Nicholls is an FCS team that mounted three 60-plus yard scoring drives in your stadium. South Carolina had very little passing game. Sack yardage took a chunk out of UCLA’s rushing numbers.
All of that can be perfectly true while also acknowledging that those three massive runs are what stands between LSU and some rock-solid run defense numbers. Three chunk runs out of 124 have accounted for 42 percent of opponents’ rushing yards this year. There is certainly a difference between having three awful reps against the run and 30 or 40 awful reps against the run.
No one here is suggesting wiping those yards off the ledger, simply to look at Kelly’s point that there are a lot of good reps against the run. On 39 South Carolina rushes, the Gamecocks ran for 102 yards. That’s 2.6 yards per carry which would rank 15th in college football for the young season. On rushes 40 and 41, they ran for 141 yards and two touchdowns. THAT’S the problem.
LSU cleaned up the big play runs against UCLA. That’s a start. As you can see above, South Alabama wasn’t scared to run the ball against Appalachian State. Another step needs to come this weekend.
Ole Miss and Alabama are miles better than South Carolina. Texas A&M is going to run it with more talented dudes, as well. Without steady improvement, LSU will still get gashed on the ground by those teams.
The Rebs ran for 317 yards on the 2023 Tiger defense. Alabama accounted for 288. The difference? Alabama’s long that night in Bryant-Denny was 23 yards. Almost all of the 46 reps were bad. That’s tougher to correct.
As has been the case for three weeks, very little is going to warm the fan base’s collective heart until improvement is shown against the top tier of the SEC.
That chance doesn’t come for two weeks. It’s all talk until then.
But the numbers suggest strides are happening.
