By Hunt Palmer
It’s more than the laced-up cleats and youthful exuberance.
LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker invests emotionally in his players. He looks the part of “one of the guys” often, but he plays it to.
Baker is in year two at LSU as the defensive coordinator, and his unit has been exceptional through a pair of games. The Tigers have only allowed 17 points, three coming courtesy of a Tiger fumble that set Clemson up in field goal range and seven coming against the second unit late in a lopsided with over Louisiana Tech.
Last year LSU made strides as a defense, bouncing back from the worst statistical unit in program history. This year the goal is championship level defense, and it’s off to a good start.
What’s different?
“I think our trust in Coach Baker, our buy in to what he’s teaching us and what he’s preaching to us,” said junior linebacker Whit Weeks. “He brings energy every single day, so it’s hard not to being energy when the boss man is bringing it.”
Baker can be seen bouncing around the practice field daily. His purple and gold cleats securely tightened and his interlocking LSU baseball logo hat dripping in sweat. He’s all energy all the time, and his players can relate.
“He was once also a player, so he understands how it is mentally for us on Friday and Saturday,” said senior safety Jardin Gilbert. “How tight our shoulders might be, how intense we get into our heads, so just trying to relax us. If we’re relaxed, we can play fast. Just stuff like that because he can relate to us because he was once in our shoes.”
To get the team to relax on Friday nights, Baker organizes trivia designed to lighten the mood and maybe impart a little knowledge along the way.
Weeks said the team enjoys a hearty laugh at the expense of stumped teammates. There’s also a fair amount of dread that you may be the butt of the joke that week.
“You get some dudes up there, and it’s like, ‘what state are we in?’, and they hardly know what state we’re in right now,” Weeks joked. “There was one that got me. It was, ‘what bone are babies not born with?’ Do any of y’all know? You’ll never guess. Kneecaps. Babies aren’t born with kneecaps. Nobody knew that. That was one of the ones last year. I was up there trying to answer, and I was like, ‘oh gosh, I have no idea.’”
Trivia isn’t the only learning that’s going on. The players are taking to Baker’s defensive schemes, as well.
Last season’s early action was lowlighted by busted coverages and big plays. Nicholls State ran for 168 yards including a 67-yard touchdown. The following week, South Carolina ran for 243 yards including two touchdown runs of over 65 yards. Later, Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe turned Tiger Stadium into a sprinting track.
Through two weeks this season, LSU has stymied the run completely.
“I feel like we know a lot more of what we’re doing,” Weeks said. “This is the second year under Coach Baker. We also know exactly how he wants his drills to be done whereas last year it’s like we’re not doing the drills exactly like he wants us to do them. But now, it’s like, ‘ok we know what he wants us to do.’ Now, Coach Baker can throw his little wrinkles in there that makes you even better.”
Moment after Weeks delivered that quote, Gilbert sat in the same chair and nearly repeated it verbatim.
“I feel like that’s with any first-year defense,” Gilbert said. “You’re learning as you go. This year definitely I feel like we know what we’re doing. We know why we’re doing it, and we’re able to play fast.”
The results show it.
Scheme and talent certainly have a lot to do with LSU’s improvement, but listening to Tiger players over the last month, they all speak highly of the camaraderie and trust the players have in Baker.
It’s hard to suggest the great play doesn’t start there.
“What I enjoy about Coach Blake is that he’s consistent,” Gilbert said. “Monday through Sunday, he’s going to give you his all. He’s going to come into the facility with high energy, so seeing a coach that’s like that, you want to run through a wall for him. He’s like one of the boys in the locker room. He knows when to play, when not to play. He’s an amazing coach.”
Weeks pointed out the final defensive call against Clemson. The players were coached that quarterback Cade Klubnik would evade the middle blitz by rolling to his right. That’s where Baker sent his fastest blitzer, Harold Perkins, to erase the play. On cue, Klubnik bailed to his right, and Perkins exploded toward him, forcing an early and errant throw.
It quite literally doesn’t get any better than this. #LSU is 1-0. Finally. pic.twitter.com/Rv80XtdvkX
— Tingle & Co (@Tingle__Co) August 31, 2025
When a play develops just as a coach designs it, that trust from the players grows.
“Coach Baker, he’s a defensive genius,” Weeks said. “Every single call, it’s like, bet, ok let’s go run it. It’s going to work for us because we all trust him.”
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