Scooter Hobbs column: Honey Badger may have been the best

Published 12:01 am Thursday, July 31, 2025

As long as we’re talking about the greatest all-time defensive football players to ever come out of LSU, I guess you saw where Tryann Mathieu just retired from the Saints.

Probably just a coincidence.

However, we can’t really have this conversation without the Honey Badger.

For a while he didn’t like the greatest nickname ever, but did, sort of, late in his NFL career accept the Honey Badger tag that he got at LSU.

But let’s get back on topic here, our discussion of the greatest defensive players LSU ever churned out.

Which actually brings us back to the Honey Badger.

We need to check in on him again. If Mathieu wasn’t the greatest defensive player LSU ever had, then surely he had the single best season.

I’ll toss out some stats from 2011, even though they’re not really the thing — 57 tackles, six forced fumbles and five fumble recoveries, two of which he personally returned for touchdowns. And two punt return touchdowns, not to mention eight tackles for loss by a cornerback.

Pretty good, huh?

What if I told you his only other season at LSU, as a freshman in 2010, wasn’t much different — eight and half tackles for loss by a cornerback along with five forced fumbles and three recoveries.

The 11 forced fumbles and the eight recoveries are both SEC career records, even though the Honey Badger’s career was only two seasons.

Somehow, that still doesn’t seem to tell the story.

You almost had to be there — or at least see it on TV.

Time can blur some things, sure, but when I think back on those two seasons it seems like the only thing happening those years was Tyrann Mathieu this and Honey Badger that, always sticking his nose into other teams’ business.

And, don’t forget, one of those seasons was the 13-0 run in 2011 before losing to Alabama in the BCS championship game.

There was a lot going on — but most of the big plays and game-changing chicanery all seemed to be Honey Badger-related.

Never mind that, at 5-9, 180 pounds, he was usually the smallest guy on the field.

When there was something big going on, you knew the Honey Badger would emerge from the middle of it, likely as not jerking away and sprinting toward six.

Maybe that’s what made him so much fun to watch.

It was like LSU would just wind him up and turn him loose, maybe giggle before sitting back to watch the mischief begin.

He could turn a Saturday night game into a Saturday morning cartoon — beep! beep! — the Road Runner forever foiling Wile E. Coyote.

Maybe the best compliment came from Nick Sablan.

Saban was famous for game-planning with the idea of taking away the one thing from his opponent that he feared might beat him.

For the two LSU-Alabama games of the 2011 season, that was obviously Mathieu, whose fingerprints seemed to be all over most of the LSU victories.

But Mathieu struggled in both Alabama games that season, LSU’s 9-6 overtime win in Tuscaloosa and the Tide’s 21-0 revenge win in the national championship.

So The GOAT did get the best of the Honey Badger.

But while LSU has had two Heisman Trophy winners since then, Mathieu is the only LSU defensive player ever invited to the ceremony as a finalist.

If you can accept 2011 as the best single season by an LSU defender — and that much is not really up for debate — he basically had two years that at least had the same feel.

So … Case closed. The best there ever was at LSU. No argument.

But that’s not even the best reason to wish the Honey Badger well in his retirement.

So here’s one reminder that Mathieu didn’t play a third season at LSU because he was kicked off the team.

It was the ever-popular “violation of team rules,” reportedly multiple failed drug tests. But they weren’t exactly dealing with a cartel. Even then marijuana was pretty far down the substance abuse list and The Mathieu Case led to whispers that LSU’s policies were more stringent than most schools and might be running off players.

Mathieu certainly would have  been excused for being bitter. After sitting out a year, he was able to go to the NFL draft, but dropping from sure first round to the third cost him a lot of money.

Instead, 10 years later, after overcoming the draft snub to be a four-time All-Pro and play in three Pro Bowls, all he did was donate $1 million to the school and the football program that kicked him to the sidewalk.

It was fitting that he returned to the state for his final three years with the Saints. Louisiana, particularly its young kids, is where most of his charitable time and money has gone in recent years.

“Football gave me purpose, discipline and memories that will stay with me forever,” he said on a social media post announcing his retirement. “But more than anything, it gave me a community.”

He’s been giving back to that community ever since.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics for the American Press. You can reach him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com