Saturday will be the College Gameday crew’s first look at a Lane Kiffin team in its opener.
ESPN has invaded Baton Rouge for the primetime matchup between LSU and Clemson in Tiger Stadium. Kiffin’s last three openers at Ole Miss were Georgia State, Furman and Mercer. Ole Miss outscored those three opponents 212-14. Gameday wasn’t present.
Kiffin called last weekend’s intrasquad scrimmage a “mock game.” The description applies to those three lopsided openers, too. Ole Miss just sold tickets to those. Still, the first-year Tiger coach believes he and his staff have prepared the team as well as possible.
“I think we’ve done a lot to prepare because this is a really challenging opener, one we really haven’t been a part of,” Kiffin said. “We made our schedules differently (at Ole Miss). So, this is not a game you can kind of, well, we’ll just try these things out with players and see how this freshman looks. This is a big-time matchup on national stage.”
Those blowout debuts allowed depth chart decisions to wait and rotations to be implemented without fear of failure. Saturday’s start with Clemson does not. That doesn’t mean freshmen won’t play.
The first week of fall camp, a pair of freshmen defensive tackles–Deuce Geralds and Richard Anderson— manned the middle of LSU’s front. Veterans Dominick McKinley, Stephiylan Green and Malik Blocton have also gotten reps.
While players have battled for starting jobs at safety, wide receiver and running back, they’re still competing for spots at defensive tackle just days before kickoff.
“I feel like things have really kind of settled down for the most part,” Kiffin said. “Except really D-Tackle. D-Tackle, still a lot of guys doing good things in there. Some old, some young. And so, we’ll rotate in there.”‘
Four days of preparation remain for Kiffin and his staff. Both sides of the ball have implemented the game plan.all. Beyond the Xs and Os, Kiffin also has expectations around energy and enthusiasm.
He feels, having watched LSU from afar over the years, that his idea of what a team looks and plays like is a perfect fit in purple and gold.
“The style that they play with, when you come to watch, you’re like that’s an exciting team to watch that plays really good football, and they really master situations,” Kiffin said. “They’re really well coached. They have a style about how they play, which I think we’ve done at previous places. And I think that that style and kind of swagger that our players play with, I think matches perfectly to LSU and when it was great how they played. So, I want to see that come together and look like that.”
