I know we don't talk about football here. Especially in the off-season. I just can't litter on the B1G board too much.
utee had asked a while back about personnel for the upcoming UT @ LSU game. I like to hedge and wait to see what happens for sure, but it's panned out about like I expected. Here's some info, and you Horns keeping track, give me some updates too if you don't mind. I looked into it at the start of the season, but I've forgotten a lot of it by now. Also by now you'll know for sure who will be here and who won't.
So, LSU.....
Offense: most obvious thing is Burrow is out, of course. That leaves senior Sam Ehlinger vs. Jr. and first-year starter Myles Brennan. We know what Sam can do, and he's been doing it for a long time. Brennan has looked good in junk time, but it was garbage time, and he still was seldom allowed to do too much. Also noticing now on rewatches just how subbed the whole team really was when he was in. Not much footage of him working with the 1's. Unknown quantity....not going to return LSU to the dark ages, but won't be anywhere close to his predecessor either. Big advantage Texas, there.
WRs are going to be really, really good again. Only lose one guy. One guy in particular has looked primed to do great there, just couldn't get in front of the departed guy. Production will dip because of other factors, but this unit will be very, very hard to deal with again.
Primary TE left. Was a pretty good weapon. Newcomers are overall more talented, by a good bit, but Moss' experience shouldn't be discounted. Probably a net loss, at least as early as the UT game.
Tailback: Primary guy left. A really good versatile weapon who fit LSU's offense well. All the guys behind him are better pure runners, but they lack his experience and likely won't come out of the gate doing the non-ball-carrier stuff well that made him so good in this offense. Vision, blocking ability, probably pass catching, someone will have to emerge over time. I'd really love this unit in LSU's old ground'n'pound days. In this version of the spread, losing the main TB is going to be a loss, I think.
O-line: mixed bag. Losing 4 out of 5 starters. Looking at the depth chart for next year, I was surprised how many of these guys have starts and how much they have played. Not freaking out as much as I normally would with that much changeover. One guy was a great starter in 2017, missed 2018 suspended, and played a lot in 2019 but was not technically a starter, so I have a more confidence in that RG spot than I normally would a "new starter." He was 2017's best OL. The real keys are going to be, can the guard moving to C (probably) do well there, and how long does it take the LG to grow up there? This should not be a bad line, but with OLs I'm a big believer in cumulative starts as a unit, and while there's experience here, there's not enough of these 5 guys, starting these positions, together, to project a strength here. Best we can hope for is it's not a major weakness.
Defense: Not changing too much on the front and back ends. Going to be mostly the same linemen, meaning they should be tough against the run again, not the best pass rushers, but big space eaters that let LBs do their thing. We don't know who the new DC is yet, and if we'll still be running a 3-4 next year. Depending on scheme and what's asked of them, this is up in the air. As is, in the scheme LSU has been using, this is a trustworthy line.
Same for DBs. This is going to be a very good unit again. Biggest concern is the nickel corner, as in, which guy shows up? He did very well in 2018 and down the stretch of 2019. He was an active liability for the first half of 2019. Nadir was probably when Devin Duvernay beat him like he stole his lunch money. Srsly, the kid should file charges for what Duvernay did to him. Struggled on through the Florida game, and then poof, the 2018 version was back.
LBs, this one hurts. Departures gutted LSU here. Lot of numbers, and lots of talent, but experience is going to be pretty thin. The guys who have played have either done so mostly in junk time, or with a lot of the older guys around telling them what to do. I would expect some noticeable dropoff here.
Experience usually trumps talent in the early goings for me. I typically ding teams which rely on talent but lack a lot of experience. It's a big part of why I picked LSU last year and why I'm picking Texas this year. Yall feel free to update me, but UT should be getting most of its defense back, I thought. There's a lot of talent there, and that's a bad combo for a new QB. LSU is going to be good, but there will be chinks in the armor on both sides, and the QB edge is a decisive advantage for the Longhorns.
Now you know everything I know. Back to the beer thread.