LSU football struggled to find consistency in its defensive backfield last season, resulting in opposing offenses exploiting the Tigers through the air.
This season, under new defensive coordinator Blake Baker, LSU plans to implement changes aimed at stabilizing the secondary.
Sage Ryan returns at safety, expected to start alongside Texas A&M transfer Jardin Gilbert. Major Burns will play the STAR, a new hybrid safety-linebacker position introduced by Baker. Additionally, LSU may employ more man coverage, provided they can identify two reliable starting corners.
“If you were to cut me wide open, we want to play a lot of man,” Baker said in May. “But I also know that we’re going to do what’s best for our guys back there as well.”
Burning Question: Who Will Start at Cornerback?
LSU concluded spring practice with sophomore Ashton Stamps and freshman PJ Woodland as the starting corners. However, the depth chart will likely change when preseason camp begins Thursday, raising more questions than answers.
Incumbent starter Zy Alexander is expected to practice before the season, but his health remains a concern as he continues recovering from a torn ACL sustained in LSU’s 2023 win over Army.
JK Johnson, who transferred from Ohio State in 2023, missed all of last season due to a preseason leg injury. The redshirt junior, a former top-100 national recruit, has started only five games in his career and hasn’t played since 2022. Can he secure a starting role?
Johnson will compete with Stamps and junior transfer corner Jyaire Brown, who previously played in a rotational role at Ohio State.
A surprise candidate could also emerge. Last preseason, Stamps, a former three-star recruit, impressed with a strong camp. In the spring, Woodland distinguished himself from the other corners in LSU’s 2024 freshman class.
Recruitment and Retention Challenges
LSU has relied heavily on transfer cornerbacks over the past four years, resulting in poor recruitment and retention of freshmen at the position.
Between 2020-23, LSU signed eight true corners from high school, but only two remain on the roster. Of these, only Stamps is expected to practice this preseason. The other, Javien Toviano, is serving an indefinite suspension following a July 21 arrest.
Kelly and his staff have used the transfer portal to address these losses with mixed results. In 2022, transfers Jarrick Bernard-Converse and Mekhi Garner provided solid production, but only for one season. In 2023, LSU signed four transfer corners, but one missed the entire season, and two spent most of the year away from the team. Alexander became a reliable starter but his season was cut short after eight games.
This turnover forced LSU to rely on freshmen like Stamps, Toviano, and Jeremiah Hughes, who predictably struggled in their first collegiate action.
This year, Kelly and Baker must find consistent contributors at cornerback to improve the defense and reduce reliance on the transfer portal by retaining and developing the four freshman corners on the 2024 roster.
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