Lane Kiffin’s final stop on the chatter circuit was the Baton Rouge Rotary Club on Wednesday.
It not quite the pressure cooker that SEC Media Days can be. Call it a home game. Kiffin joked about his trips back to Oxford and Knoxville and updated the status of Sam Leavitt.
One of the more interesting tidbits was Kiffin’s assertion that his team is young. That’s not a word you associate with more than 40 transfer additions. And it’s not entirely true. However, it’s not false, either.
“Everyone says, ‘well, here’s the portal players that come and everybody thinks they’re one-year players.’ They’re not,” Kiffin said. “So, a lot of times portal players that pay off, okay, maybe even backups initially that are younger freshman, sophomore players. Then in year two end up being starters as these great players that we have that are seniors leave. It’s actually a pretty young team. There’s not many seniors on the team as you look at it. So, as excited as we are for this year, I just want to talk about that about the building of the future.”
There are only nine scholarship seniors on the roster. Five of those are transfers. That means about 35 of the transfers could come back next year. When you factor in five-for-five, maybe more do. Since it’s the first year that’s been in place, technically every team in the country got a year younger.
This was an intentional effort to be as sure as possible that LSU does not have to dip back in for 40 more portal pieces next winter.
A look at the projected starters suggests there will be turnovers next summer, though. “Young” is a tough way to describe LSU’s first 22 to 25 players.
On offense, Braelin Moore, Bo Bordelon, Jayce Brown and Aliou Bah are seniors. Jordan Seaton, Trey’Dez Green and Sam Leavitt are very, very likely departures. That’s seven starters on one side of the ball.
Tre Wilson, Tre Brown, Jackson Harris, Malik Elzy and Sean Thompkins are all fourth-year players with the option to leave or stay. Caden Durham is also a junior. That’s 13 total offensive players deep into their college careers. No freshman is projected at this point to have a huge offensive impact.
Defensively, Princewill Umanmielen, Whit Weeks, TJ Dottery and Ty Benefield are all seniors. Jordan Ross is a draft risk as a junior. So are Dashawn Spears and Tamarcus Cooley who are very veteran players that will have to play themselves to that level.
Stephiylan Green is a fourth-year player. Malik Blocton is a junior. So are PJ Woodland, Davhon Keys and Dominick McKinley.
That’s 12 defensive players, and DJ Pickett and Deuce Geralds are the only probable starters I haven’t mentioned. I think Richard Anderson and Lamar Brown factor in significantly, but not as starters in Week 1.
So, the defense is not young, either.
As of today, I’d project three LSU starters that will play this season as freshmen or sophomores — Winnie Watkins and Dilin Jones on offense and Deuce Geralds and DJ Pickett on defense.
Kiffin specified ‘team’ not ‘starting lineup,’ so he’s technically correct is his comment about seniors. However, this is not a team short on seasoning. Growing pains shouldn’t be expected. It’s about gelling.
