We’ll have to wait for Aranda to open box of tricks

Published 7:40 am Sunday, April 17, 2016

BATON ROUGE — It was a spring game for LSU … and you know what that means.

Sloppy at times, yes. Not always the smoothest of operations.

LSU playing LSU, tough to pick a winner.

Make of it what you will, although for the record the Purple beat the White 17-7.

“It was not a game,” head coach Les Miles said. “We got in functional work.”

It was kind of hard to keep track at times.

But the most bored guy in Tiger Stadium had to be the new whiz kid in Tigertown, defensive coordinator Dave Aranda.

He went through the motions, tried to scream and holler like there were real bullets flying.

But his hands were kind of tied, at least for this day.

He has as much of a mandate for next season for his wards as quarterback coach Cam Cameron and wide receivers coach Dameyune Craig for the passing game.

Somewhat lost amid the handwringing over the Tigers’ travails in the passing game last year, the defense wasn’t exactly up to the LSU standards either.

Its overall numbers were the worst for an LSU defense since 2008, the ill-fated experiment with co-coordinators on that side of the ball. In last season’s three-game losing streak that almost cost Miles his head coaching job, the Tigers gave up 30, 31 and 38 points in successive weeks.

Enter Aranda, one of the hottest commodities in college coaching.

“He has swagger,” nose guard Davon Godchaux said. “He’s cool and a laid-back guy. But he knows his stuff. Things are going to go well.”

He also comes with the reputation as a mad scientist of sorts with his defenses, a prodigy who’s redefining defensive Xs and Os.

He just didn’t get to show much of it Saturday, not in that atmosphere.

“We obviously removed a lot of the things that we do both offensively and defensively and special teams so we didn’t give too much of a hint to our opponents for next year,” Miles said.

Aranda understands.

The finished product wasn’t supposed to be online for the spring game anyway.

Not that Aranda wasn’t itching to start pulling his levers and trap doors.

“If there can be an exotic blitz, I’m first in line for that,” Aranda said. “But today wasn’t the day for that.

“The bells and whistles will be in the mix, there’s plenty of time for that to play out.

“I am first to want to get to this blitz or to get to this overload coverage or get to this disguise,” Aranda said. “Even in this (spring) game (at his other coaching stops) I’ve done that once or twice … and it hasn’t been great.”

So Aranda spent the 15 spring practices putting in the basics of his defense, mostly whatever adjustment the Tigers will have to make to lining up in its core 3-4 package.

“So much has been ‘Let’s get a foundation in,’” Aranda said. “We got three coverages in, we worked those things to death in terms of adjustments and techniques. I really feel good about the foundation.”

The mad genius says it’s not rocket science. For the players, at least, it’s probably simpler than anything they’ve done defensively in college.

“We’re making it look like we do a lot of things, where we’re really just running our base defense but still coming at you from different angles,” he said.

There was news on that front — the front three — Saturday.

Apparently it’s been in the works for a week or so, and the ever-secretive Tigers felt good enough to let it out of the bag for public consumption.

But Godchaux and Christian LaCouture, two of the Tigers’ best returning defenders, are switching spots.

Maybe it shows how Aranda isn’t afraid to think outside the box, in the this case while filling the “box” at the line of scrimmage.

If you asked the casual fan to name the nose guard and the defensive end between those two, the bulkier LaCouture would be the obvious choice for the middle.

The coaches evidently assumed that as well, at least at the start.

But it didn’t play out that way.

“The quickness that Godchaux brings inside, the ability to beat one-on-ones made us better,” Aranda said.

“LaCouture brings us a great presence (at end) in that he can knock back on tackles.

“I think it really fits those guys. We really excelled once we made that switch.

“I’m excited. Summer time is going to be real important for us, who we build on it. But it was a good spring.”

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com

Former Wisconsin Badgers defensive coordinator Dave Aranda watches an NCAA college football practice practice in Madison