Spring gives LSU time to find identity

Published 6:31 pm Sunday, March 11, 2018

As LSU’s Maravich Assembly Center braces for NIT mania and concerned fans keep a worried eye on the baseball doings, Tigers football wedges its way in to open spring football practice today.

Never heard of spring football practice starting on a Sunday, but to each his own.

Ordinarily I urge caution on depending on such exercises for entertainment value.

After all, at its heart it is still football practice, which is admittedly important for those doing it, but ideally should be done in private lest an entire fandom falls asleep and forgets to renew their tradition fund pledges.

But this is an important spring for head coach Ed Orgeron.

Most of the important stuff won’t be decipherable to the naked eye — you won’t really know until next fall — but it’s important anyway.

Never mind that there are several glaring holes to fill.

That’s not unusual.

With LSU players’ penchant for early NFL departures, most of the good stuff needs replacing most years.

What this team really needs, and can start working on today, is a true identity.

A year ago, Orgeron’s first as full-time head coach, it took a while.

It was a glaring oversight for the first half of last season, which included an embarrassing loss at Mississippi State and came to a head in the inexplicable upset at the hands of Troy.

In those dark days, the Tigers didn’t seem to know who they were or what they wanted to be when they grew up.

They did a commendable job of righting the ship from that disaster, although it did seem they were piecemealing it together, kind of making up an identity and patching it as they went along for the remainder of an up-and-down year.

“We weren’t clicking on all cylinders. I knew that, knew that in the office,” Orgeron told The Advocate of Baton Rouge in an interview last week. “I felt the flow wasn’t the same. So we changed some things. I knew I had to give my team a better chance … by running an offense I felt comfortable running and people agreed with me.”

That, of course, led to offensive coordinator Matt Canada’s departure.

“I really feel I have the offensive coordinator I always wanted here in Steve Ensminger,” Orgeron said.

Ensminger, who did a commendable job as fill-in interim coordinator while Orgeron was interim head coach for most of 2016, is a better choice than most outside observers are giving him credit for.

This is his spring to start putting his true mark on the offense — and he has some wide-open, pass-happy attacks in his past.

Sure, there are holes to fill -— 93 percent of the rushing and passing yards, for instance, along with 64 percent of the receiving yards.

LSU isn’t bereft of talent. Something will turn up.

Derrick Dillon and Stephen Sullivan likely would have had more impact last year if DJ Chark and Russell Gage hadn’t hogged the catches. Dee Anderson and Drake Davis, too. There’s also incoming freshman Terrace Marshall and Texas Tech transfer Jonathan Giles,who had more than 1,000 receiving yards in his last season with the Red Raiders.

Receivers often have to wait their turn at LSU. The spring is the time to let them know that now is theirs.

All eyes as usual — it is LSU, after all — will be on quarterback, where Orgeron has promised a spirited competition to replace graduated Danny Etling that likely doesn’t exist in reality.

Play along with him.

Lowell Narcisse and Justin McMillan, the dual-threat types, will get plenty of reps, maybe even a few speciality packages that might come in handy next fall.

But sophomore Myles Brennan is the odds-on choice to take over the offense.

He’s the drop-back passer of the bunch, and not only have Ensminger and Orgeron both promised to throw it all over the lot, they might not have a choice. It will be an offense without the obvious dominant running back in waiting LSU has become accustomed to.

Unless there’s somebody they’ve kept under wraps, the Tigers nees a surprise there during the spring.

Sure, they will need to work on timing in the spring. Mainly, though, Brennan needs to take hold of this offense and claim it as his own.

But both sides of the line of scrimmage should be in good shape. There are holes, but the defensive front should be far deeper with the addition of transfer Breiden Fehoko (also from Texas Tech) and redshirt freshman Tyler Shelvin. Last year Orgeron famously said he had the “best ineligible defensive line in the country.” Now they can join star Rashard Lawrence.

But as important as filling those holes is, the next month is when this team starts to build a true chemistry.

It starts today.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com