Nine months after he sat across from the new head coach’s desk at LSU Football Operations, Lamar Brown finally suited up for practice as a Tiger.
Brown took part in LSU’s Wednesday fall camp opener donning his No. 55 jersey. After years of standing just a hundred or so yards away from the field where he earned the No. 1 overall prep ranking at UHigh observing LSU from the sidelines, Brown put on a helmet and got to work. He repped on the second defensive unit alongside fellow blue chipper Richard Anderson as well as proven college commodities like Stephiylan Green, Davhon Keys and Tamarcus Cooley.
Consider it his first step toward the field.
“We’re really excited about him, his ability to do multiple things,” said LSU Head Coach Lane Kiffin. “That’ll take a little time. He just got here. Freshmen now, if you look at it, are not impacting quite as much as they used to before. I’m not saying him. I’m speaking in general. I think everybody expects all these freshmen to just have these elite freshman years, and that’s not really what’s happening a lot around the country because rosters don’t have as many holes because they’re filled by portal players.”
LSU filled both defensive ends with portal players. Princewill Umanmielen came with Kiffin from Ole Miss. Jordan Ross was also a five-star recruit when he signed with Tennessee. After two years as a Volunteer, he’s in purple and gold.
Dylan Carpenter has been in the program for three years, and Damien Shanklin was a high-profile signee in las year’s class.
Gabriel Reliford’s injury has cost LSU a little bit of depth on the edge, and Brown’s arrival could help with that. He’s also not being asked to start, log 75 snaps per game and dominate SEC tackles right away.
“Where before, players were forced to play a little more as (freshmen), I just temper some expectations on all these freshmen,” Kiffin said. “Not every one of them is going to start and be all-American.”
Ultimately, though, that’s the goal.
When Kiffin arrived in Baton Rouge, leaving a wild scene in Oxford as he departed, Brown visited LSU’s football operations building that very night. Less than a week later, Brown inked with LSU as one of the in-state stars in Kiffin’s first signing class.
Since that night, Kiffin has been impressed with the former UHigh Cub.
“Lamar has a great height, weight, speed combination. Very rare to find,” Kiffin said. “And he’s an awesome kid, really intelligent, really well spoken, really has really good thoughts when you meet with him about being great and what it takes. It’s awesome for him to kind of be the first guy I met when I was here. The guy’s on my couch in the office the first night. So, that’s kind of a cool story for it happened to be such a great kid.”
