By Hunt Palmer
LSU employed six defensive line coaches in four years from 2020 to 2023.
When Brian Kelly lured Bo Davis home to LSU in 2024, that was supposed to provide stability to a position group desperate for it.
Instead, just 13 months later, LSU’s defensive line is without a leader again. Luke Johnson of The Advocate reported Thursday morning that Davis was leaving his alma mater after one season to join the New Orleans Saints.
For Davis, it’s an opportunity at the highest level. For LSU, it’s a gut punch.
In 12 years as collegiate defensive line coach, Davis has developed 17 all-conference selections and seven all-Americans. He was a part of two national championship staffs at Alabama and tutored T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy to all-American honors and, in Sweat’s case, the Outland Trophy at Texas.
Considering his $1.25 million salary and close tie to the place he played his college football in the early 1990s, it stood to reason that Davis would be at LSU a substantial length of time. That promised to bring the Tiger defensive line back to the prowess it enjoyed when LSU sent defensive linemen into the NFL by the truckload.
From 2008 to 2015, a span of eight drafts, the Tigers had 13 defensive linemen drafted, four in the first round. LSU hasn’t produced a first rounder since.
The Tigers finished 2024 12th in the SEC in rushing defense. The previous year was worse, 13th in a 14-team league. LSU hasn’t been in the top seven in the SEC in rushing defense since the championship season in 2019 which is not so coincidentally the last time LSU had a defensive line coach for more than 13 months.
When Bill Johnson retired in 2021, Ed Orgeron brought in Andre Carter. When Orgeron was fired, Carter was not retained. Kelly hired Jamar Cain who bolted for the Denver Broncos after a year. Then Jimmy Lindsey was brought in for 2023. He had to leave the team for medical reasons. That meant a promotion for John Jancek who went from analyst to position coach. LSU’s defensive front struggled so badly in 2023 that Kelly called on 82-year-old Pete Jenkins to help steady the ship.
That’s where Davis came in.
In year one, Davis held the LSU defensive front together with a combination of athletic tape and river mud. Jacobian Guillory went down. Gio Paez and Paris Shand moved inside. Ahmad Breaux and Dominick McKinley had to grow up quickly.
It wasn’t a work of art, but it was functional and it was a starting point.
With Guillory returning for a sixth season and the youth developing under Davis, it was easy to see a dawn of a new era coming.
No longer.
Just 10 days prior to spring practices beginning and a month after the college football coaching carousel stopped spinning, Kelly is searching for yet another defensive line coach.
Kevin Peoples worked wonders with Bradyn Swinson and Sai’vion Jones on the edges last year. He’s got an extensive background coaching the defensive line, having done it at eight different spots including Arkansas and Tulane.
Kelly could put Peoples in charge of the entirety of the front. But is that taking away from his ability to develop the edge players like Gabriel Reliford and the three transfers the Tigers are going to rely heavily upon?
The defensive line coach at LSU is a coveted position, and Kelly will fill it. Davis was making $1.25 million. That alone speaks loudly. It also welcomes curiosity about Davis’s decision which will almost assuredly mean a pay cut.
Does Davis just want to test himself against the best in the world? Or is he the next in the line of coaches like Jeff Hafley who left the head job at Boston College to be the Packers’ defensive coordinator, Chip Kelly who left his UCLA gig to call plays at Ohio State or Jim Larranega who retired in the middle of Miami’s basketball season because of the transfer portal and NIL?
Only Davis knows.
What is certain is that the Tigers are gearing up for a run at the playoffs in 2025. Davis and his position group figured to be a huge part of that.
Instead, it’ll be the eighth different defensive line coach in six years.
