Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports
By Hunt Palmer
Patience is in rare supply in collegiate athletics.
Every year literally thousands of players enter the transfer portal looking for playing time, better financial offers or a simple change of scenery. Few wait to play.
Bo Bordelon has certainly bucked that trend.
The fifth-year senior offensive lineman has started one game as a Tiger, the 2024 Texas Bowl when Will Campbell, Emery Jones and Garrett Dellinger opted to sit out against Baylor. In four seasons, Bordelon has played a total of 136 offensive snaps.
This offseason, eight of his teammates on the offensive line transferred out. The previous season, Campbell, Jones, Dellinger and Miles Frazier were drafted.
Bordelon never flinched.
Now eight transfers have invaded the position group. Two high schoolers have enrolled. A new coaching staff has taken over the program, and Bordelon continues to work. A week ago, that work nudged him to the front of the line at left guard where he spent Saturday’s scrimmage repping between projected first round pick Jordan Seaton and incumbent center Braelin Moore.
“He’s just done a really good job,” said LSU head coach Lane Kiffin. “We moved him in to guard and had a competition going there. As of Saturday he won it even though obviously we’re not playing a game. We don’t just make a depth chart, and you stay there. I think a lot of people do that. If you get outplayed, we move the depth chart daily. He’s been doing a great job and deserved a right to go in there and start and did a good job.”
Because Bordelon has been in the program so long, he maintains a relationship with assistant offensive line coach James Cregg. Bordelon signed with LSU in the Class of 2022. Cregg was the LSU offensive line coach in 2018, 2019 and 2020. As Bordelon budded into a prospect, he was on Cregg’s radar then.
Of course, that’s not the only reason Bordelon has earned this spring starting spot. Cregg was at Ole Miss last season working with Devin Harper who was the starter at left guard for the first three weeks of spring practice.
“I think coaching (this situation) has nothing to do with whoever the coaches were before,” Kiffin said. “Nothing to do with that. Fresh starts are good for players, and guys come in and see different things or a different system. Our line coaches have been really excited about him from day one working.”
Kiffin expressed some displeasure with his offense’s slow start to spring. Every position group has new faces or is almost completely made over. The starting quarterback is sidelined. Plus, Blake Baker’s defense has some continuity both on the coaching staff and on the field.
The defense is winning most days in practice.
Offensive line has been something of a bright spot, though. LSU finished last among the SEC’s 16 teams each of the last two years in rushing offense. That has to change, and it starts up front.
“I think that offensively (the offensive line) has probably developed the best through a couple weeks and has played well together,” Kiffin said. “In my opinion, it has dramatically improved from when we got here. And so that that’s probably been the one bright spot (offensively) as you look at the film. I have really high standards and expectations, and we’re not tackling, so that kind of that obviously creates more yards because there’s missed tackles within a game, and you’d feel a little better. But I think the offensive line is coming along really well.”
More LSU Stories
