I think my biggest miss on the 2025 team was defensive end.
The quarterback situation was unforeseeable in July and early August. Injuries derailed Garrett Nussmeier’s season, and that massively impacted the wide receivers.
The defensive ends, aside from Gabriel Reliford, stayed relatively healthy. They just didn’t change games.
Patrick Payton had one sack and wasn’t drafted. Jimari Butler had two sacks. Same for Jack Pyburn. LSU finished 12th in the SEC in sacks per game and 13th in tackles for loss per game. Those are supposed to be areas where your edge players make a huge impact, and LSU just didn’t get it.
There’s more to playing defensive end than simply racking up sacks, and Payton and Pyburn did a lot of that. They were durable and dependable against the run. Those two combined for 86 stops. But they were a long way from Marcus Spears and Marquise Hill or Sam Montgomery and Barkevious Mingo.
Now, a new group of transfers and freshmen slide in with a handful of returners as Blake Baker’s defensive looks for a little more havoc.
WHO’S BACK: Gabriel Reliford (Soph.), Dylan Carpenter (Jr.), Kolaj Cobbins (Soph.), Damien Shanklin (Soph.)
WHO’S NEW: Princewill Umanmielen (Transfer- Ole Miss), Jordan Ross (Transfer- Tennessee), Jaylen Brown (Transfer- South Carolina), Lamar Brown (Fr.), Trenton Henderson (Fr.)
WHAT WE KNOW
Princewill Umanmielen was one of three Ole Miss defections with Lane Kiffin and much of the offensive coaching staff. He comes in as a proven SEC edge player having finished third in the league in sacks last season with nine. He totaled 13 tackles for loss and has played in 38 career games between Nebraska and Ole Miss. Umanmielen is 6-foot-4 and 244 pounds. He worked with the first unit during the spring.
On the other side of the line of scrimmage was former Tennessee Volunteer Jordan Ross. Two years ago, Ross inked with the Vols as a five-star prospect. He’s 6-foot-5 and 246 pounds, almost a carbon copy of Umanmielen. He hasn’t been as productive in a shorter college stint. Over two seasons on Rocky Top, Ross never started a game. He played in 22 and totaled 5.5 tackles for loss and a sack and a half. Pro Football Focus feels a little bit differently about Ross. His grades are strong, 77 overall, 72.7 versus the run and 81.1 as a pass rusher.
Reliford has had a horrible run of injuries. He battled back from a torn rotator cuff suffered versus Southeastern only to tear his ACL in spring drills. His 2026 season is in doubt.
Dylan Carpenter has stuck it out for three seasons as a Tiger despite not playing a ton of defensive football. The St. Amant product has played in 20 games without a start. Last season, he notched a pair of sacks and had 2.5 tackles for loss. One of the sacks came against Arkansas.
Damien Shanklin looks the part. He’s 6-foot-5 and 254 pounds. He had a pair of sacks late against Southeastern. The more impressive number is that he only played four snaps in that game. He was used as a special teams player in 2025 and is entering his second season.
Kolaj Cobbins has only seen action in nine games over two years. He’s 6-foot-3 and 234 pounds and has helped a little bit on special teams.
Jaylen Brown is on SEC stop number three. He began his career at Missouri and transferred to South Carolina with new LSU defensive line coach Sterling Lucas. Brown is 6-foot-6 and 270 pound which makes him as physically imposing as anyone in the position group. He’s played 39 career snaps after missing the 2025 season with injury.
Lamar Brown comes to LSU as one of the top rated recruits in program history. Rivals and ESPN pegged him as the top player in the nation. He’s 6-foot-4, 295 pounds and was considered an elite prospect on both the offensive and defensive lines. He did not enroll early, so fall camp will be his first official practice with the Tigers though he’s been present for many workouts over the last few seasons.
Trenton Henderson hails from Pensacola. He was a consensus four-star recruit. He’s 6-foot-4 and 243 pounds and was considered a top 100 prospect. He’s part of a huge defensive line class that included Lamar Brown, Deuce Geralds and Richard Anderson.
HUNT’S PROJECTION
Right now, Umanmielen and Ross are the projected starters. They handled almost all the first team reps in the spring.
Umanmielen is a proven commodity. You can pencil him in for six to 10 sacks and some really disruptive play. Ross, I feel differently about. To me, he’s not the former five star prospect. He’s the guy that couldn’t crack the lineup at Tennessee and has less than a sack per season to his name.
That doesn’t at all mean Ross can’t break out and be a First Team All-SEC player and a first round pick. Plenty of people will likely project that based on his high school pedigree and measurables. I’ll just need to see it.
Behind those two, the question becomes Lamar Brown. We didn’t a look at him in the spring, but the projections are for him to be in the defensive end rotation as well as potentially play inside on passing downs. He’s got the size to do that. It’s rare for freshmen to cause havoc on the defensive line, but it happens. Harold Perkins essentially played on the edge as a freshman. Dylan Stewart enjoyed a monster freshman campaign at South Carolina two years ago, too. Brown fits that mold.
Then you have the depth pieces.
Of that group, I think Carpenter gets some run. He’s shown himself to be dependable if unspectacular. Jaylen Brown hasn’t really played in two years, but obviously Lucas thinks enough of him to bring him to two places. Cobbins looks like a demon off the edge in practice pass rush drills but is generally working with the threes in team drills. Shanklin was a heralded recruit who now has a year of seasoning. Henderson may be a little bit of a project coming from 2-A football on the Florida Gulf Coast.
Great teams need closers. I think Umanmielen offers that, and the hope is that Ross blossoms. That will allow Lamar Brown to come along at his pace. UHigh’s field isn’t a long way from Death Valley, but it’s a far cry from lining up against an A&M offensive line in September in front of 102,000.
Baker badly wants disruption, and he can get it by bringing pressure. His job just becomes easier if the down linemen can do it themselves on occasion. I project LSU ups that sack total this season, but I’m hesitant to say how much because of my misfire on the analysis last year. I think the improvement of Sai’vion Jones and Brayden Swinson under Kevin Peoples had something to do with that.
Baker has taken this defense from awful in 2023 to formidable in 2025. If it’s going to take that next step to dominant in 2026, this position group will need some breakout players.
