Kiffin Admits LSU Has MAJOR Concerns at 2 Key Positions

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Two areas of concern for Lane Kiffin coming out of spring. We'll talk about them. Locked on lsu Here we go.

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Okay, let's get it. It is Locked on lsu, your team every day. I'm your host, Matt Moscona. LSU has finished its first spring under Lane Kiffin. And so we're going to spend some time here on the show dissecting what we learned throughout spring and a lot of what Lane Kiffin had to say now that he's met with the media to recap spring because quite honestly it should be quiet on the LSU front for Lane Kiffin until SEC media days in July with maybe few, a few public appearances mixed in here and there. But one thing that was interesting on, on both sides of the ball that I find position groups that LSU has some major question marks, right cornerback and wide receiver. And I want to take you through in this episode where LSU stands at both positions and what they kind of need to do in this off season. So go back with me and when LSU when Lane Kiffin had his spring recap press conference, of course the final spring practice was on Saturday and then on Tuesday is when Lane Kiffin had his his post spring wrap up and I got the mic for two questions and I asked about cornerback and receiver but I want to give you context on why I asked. Okay. LSU lost Aiden Anding to a season ending Achilles injury right about the midway point of spring. And when you look at it, we know unequivocally DJ Pickett, PJ Woodland are your first two guys and that Jakim Jackson is next. And so whenever they would go nickel and have three cornerbacks on the field, Woodland would kick into the slot and then Picket and Jackson would would be your, your boundary corner. So those were your first three. But Aiden Anding was next. He was the next guy on the list. And so go back with me when Aiden anding was injured. This is right at the midway point of spring. And I asked Lane Kiffin at that press conference after, when he confirmed Aiden Anding's injury what that meant for his cornerback depth. Again, this was, this was at the

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midway point of spring concern, you know, but again back to like, like where are you in my concerns? You don't have a spring portal, you know, so people talk about coming in a program and change. Well get used to the players that you have. You see things and you go to the spring and you know the second window, well that's for the first year gone. And that does certainly. I mean that just is what is that makes it more challenging in your first year flipping a roster. And so. And that's a good example. You get an injury like that, well, you don't have a portal to go change. You don't have a. Can't put them in IR and pick someone up off of waivers like in NFL. So that's a concern. But you know, when we just got to deal with.

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So Lane Kiffin at the midway point of spring said Aiden Anding's injury depth at corner is a concern. So fast forward, you have the second half of spring, Aiden Anding not there. The silver lining means you had half a spring to get a lot more guys reps. Now Aiden's not there. But it was an opportunity for a lot of different guys to improve, step up and take advantage of that opportunity. So that's what I asked Lane Kiffin. Did you see anybody step up and take advantage of those reps?

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That's a huge emphasis for us into this offseason to look at because some guys did some decent things but nobody stepped stepped up to make you feel great in that and so got a lot of work to do in that. And that's why I said there's no portal to go to. So we got to develop our guys and get the most out of them and look at what coverages are playing with everybody and all those things. Because again, it's different. This is your roster, this is what you're set with. There's nowhere to go. So how are you going to. What programs are going to make the best even utilizing, whether that's position changes, whether that's different schemes, like I said earlier, to make the most of what you have.

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I would argue that that should not be encouraging. By the way, and Lane's right. You don't have the spring portal to go fortify that position or at edge where you lost Gabe Relaford, remember a year ago in the spring portal is when you added Bernard Gooden and A.J. hulsey. Well, Halsey ended up being your starting safety and, you know, was a part of a really good defensive backfield there with Monsoon Delaine. Well, in, in this year's January portal window, you didn't address corner there either. You added one cornerback in the January portal, trailing James from Southern, who was a safety at Southern and is playing corner at lsu. So in part, maybe this is a lesson learned for Lane for next year. So as to say you can feel really confident about your front end guys, but knowing that you don't have a spring portal after the valuation period, you're going to need more bodies at that position to compete. I certainly think with the benefit of hindsight now, he would love to go back and add a veteran, somebody with some experience at corner in that room, because what you're left with now is a very top heavy room. Listen, DJ Pickett was, you know, on three, voted him the national defensive true freshman of the year a season ago. Pickett was awesome. In his true freshman season. You had Monsieur Delaine and PJ Woodland. And then after that, Pickett was the next guy in there who played a ton for you as a true freshman. He's a legit six five. We know the whole thing, the five star. I mean, he was a freshman all American by the Football Writers association. He was freshman all SEC by the coaches, and he was the top freshman cornerback in the class. And he played in all 13 games, made three starts, had three TFLs, a couple of sacks. He had three interceptions, defended six passes like he was legit great. So you don't worry at all about Pickett. And then Woodland on the other side was outstanding for you as well. I mean, that's, you know, that's, you know, why Ashton Stamps transferred to Arizona State. I mean, you had a guy that was returning and had played a lot of football, but Woodland passed him up, flat out passed him up. So you're really good at those first two spots. And Jakeem Jackson as your number three is a guy that was highly recruited. You know, one of the top corners in the country signed with, with Corey Raymond at Florida and remember, was injured in the first game of the season in 2024, and so it really cost him his entire 24 season, you know, then of course transferred LSU a year ago and was caught in that log jam and was also injured a little bit in fall camp. So this really is an opportunity for Jakeem Jackson to be maybe in the same role that Pickett was A year ago as that third corner. But after that it is a massive drop off. I mean, Michael Turner is, is the guy that kind of was taking the next reps. And Turner's a guy entering his third season as a Red Shirt sophomore. He's 6:1, but he's only 162 pounds. I mean, he's as big as my pinky and he made some really nice plays, but also had his share of struggles. You know, Haven Finney is a guy that was the number one corner in America for the class of 2027. He reclassed and early enrolled. So you're talking about a guy that should be in the second semester of his junior year of high school right now that just went through spring. We talked about him. If you're an everydayer and you heard our practice reports, Haven Finney had some outstanding plays throughout spring in one on one drills. But that's still a very young player that you'd rather not have to count on. I mean, after that, I just mentioned trail and James, who's a veteran player who's played a lot of football but is coming in from, from the SWAC where he's playing safety. Amari Peterson is a true freshman corner who it felt like every time we called 36 throughout this spring it was because he was losing a rep. I mean, Des Ellis still hasn't showed up on campus. He's out of Franklin Parish. He'll be here over the summer. Craig Walton's a fourth year player who had the 77 yard pick six. But realistically, this guy's been around for four years and hasn't cracked the rotation. Mean, that's it, that's your cornerback room. So I would argue that for lsu, you're, you're. That is the, the spot where you can least afford an injury outside a quarterback obviously, but can least afford an injury because of the massive drop off from your top two or three guys to whatever might be next. Maybe in the off season someone grows, develops and takes advantage of the opportunity, which certainly can happen. But as it looks like on paper, Lane Kiffin used the word concerned in that sound bite twice. And it is a concern. If your guys are healthy, you're good. But if you suffer any type of setback or injury there at that cornerback position, you could be in trouble and you're looking for different options. One of the things we talked about a good bit is when we saw throughout spring LSU go into nickel and dime packages, they would add extra safeties to the field instead of extra corners to the field. So maybe something as far as Kiffin saying they're evaluating their talent and coverage is what personnel are going to fit best in those schemes if you do have to dip into your cornerback depth, which hopefully, hopefully they don't have to do. Top heavy. But as Lane Kiffin said, a lot of concern there after your first three. Now the other position that I asked Lane Kiffin about was wide receiver for a similar reason, but not necessarily numbers, but more, well, an inverse of the lack of top tier talent like you have at Corner. We'll talk about that as we continue here. It's locked in lsu. Your team, every day. 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Quick reminder, you can always get locked on ad free when you join our everyday club. Plus members only Discord Access, so join with the link in the show notes, we talked about the defensive backfield where LSU is very top heavy with their top three guys, but not great depth after. The receiver room is kind of the inverse where maybe they don't have the top tier talent, but my goodness, do they have numbers. So similarly to cornerback, I want to take you back earlier in spring and this was actually right at the very onset of spring practice when Lane Kiffin kind of explained their strategy and how they built that receiver room where you don't necessarily have the top tier guy, but they added nine players via the transfer portal. Again, this, this was Lane at the beginning of spring.

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You know, we kind of look at that room, or maybe you don't. You know, we try to balance the room more. If you think of it as like, here's your cap number for a room, you know, instead of being really top heavy with 1 and 2 and then not having depth, I think when we've been our best, it's because we've had, you know, four to five to six receivers that can all play really well. And so that's what I we're striving for here. I think we have a chance to do that with the players that are out there because then we're the best for the long run of the season and potentially in the postseason. And I think you got to look at that, especially as schedules get harder with the ninth game and basically here, the way it's set up, you really have 10 basically SEC games. So it's really critical the numbers that you have there and that you can stay healthy throughout the season and when you go to your second guys that you're still able to put pressure on defense.

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Okay, so he said they want four to five to six receivers. So they, they went and signed nine in the portal. They had Philip Wright coming back as 10 and then you had the three freshmen coming in. Then they added into Jord Granger. So you're pushing near 15 receivers. Okay. And so the point was, you heard him say there, instead of going to spend your whole cap on a top tier guy, let's get a whole bunch of guys that can build depth, that gives us quality and that makes us sort of injury proof because you have a whole bunch of guys that can contribute Makes sense, right? Well, I asked Lane on Tuesday after spring because that was Lane at the beginning of spring. So I said okay. Now that you've seen 15 practices, do you think you have four to five to six guys that can do what you said?

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I can see it. It's not there yet. I think with everything there's a cost and benefit. The route that we go doesn't get you as excited as if you have the, you know, two premier high end ones that come in and you put all your money up top. That looks a lot better to you when the first unit goes out there. But this way, what you hope is that, okay, they can play more players and keep their snap count down and then be better in the middle and later in the season. But that position takes a little bit of time too. You know, there's a lot of stuff that goes in that playing in this tempo and offense and you know, they were disappointed at first, but at the same time too, they probably improved as much as any group from 1 to 15 practice.

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I love to hear that they improved. They were disappointing at first, but they improved as much as any group from practice one to 15. And part of the reason, you know, if you're an everyday or you caught our previous episode about Winnie Watkins and please, if you missed that, go, go check out that episode. We dedicated a full episode to why Winnie Watkins is a critical piece of this offense. And Lane sort of illustrated there because Watkins was able to transition into this offense so seamlessly because he knew the offense, he knows Kiffin and he was Charlie Weiss and he knows the terminology and the route concepts and everything. So it looked very easy for him throughout most of spring because he's got a year in it already. Now he's looking for a big year two jump. But consider what Lane said there about having, you know, four to five guys that can all contribute. Well, look at Ole Miss a year ago as a, as sort of a test case. All right. Harrison Wallace led ole miss with 61 catches for 934 yards. It's a really good year. Their next leading receiver was DeShawn Stribling 55 for 811. Then Deuce Alexander had 44 catches for 684. Kaden Lee had 44 for 635. Daquan Wright, the tight end, had 39 for 635 right on the number. And then Winnie Watkins had 26 catches for 373. And then you had Caleb Odom and Kiwan Lacey who each had just under 200 receiving yards. But the point being you had Wallace, Stribling, Alexander lee, Watkins. That's five receivers all with over, with the lowest being 26 catches. And you had four if you include Daquan Wright. That's five pass catchers, so or six pass catchers. And that of course could be traded as Green this year. But Wallace, Stribling, Alexander Lee and Wright, all five of them had over 600 receiving yards this past year. Look by contrast at LSU, LSU didn't have any receivers over 600 yards. Ole Miss had five of them. Barry and Brown had 532. Xavon Thomas at 488. Tradez at 433. Aaron Anderson 398 Kyle Parker 330. Bower Sharp 252. Chris Hilton 122 yards, Nick Anderson 106. You get my point. Like Ole Miss had five pass catchers that were over 600 receiving yards. LSU didn't have any. It's an illustration of what depth in this offense with the right receivers in the offense can mean. Now I think coming out of spring, if you ask me, the 4, 5, 6 that lane just said you, you need 4, 5, 6. I think those are pretty easy to identify as of today. Now change. It's just 15 spring practices in the first look at all these guys. But Winnie Watkins was an obvious one for the reasons we just mentioned. Jace Brown from Kansas State who is the highest rated receiver transfer. LSU added. Where's number one? They used him in the deep game and in jet sweeps. He's a very obvious contributor as well. Jackson Harris from Hawaii is also one. He's six foot two and he's, you know, he, he's got great speed and was consistently running with the ones from the beginning and throughout spring. And then I think Malik Elsie was the big riser. The 6 foot 2, big bodied receiver from Illinois who was not very heralded but 88 just kept popping all throughout spring. There's four right there in addition to trade as Green that give you a really, really versatile group. And then on top of that, I told you I think Eugene Trey Wilson from Florida is got to play, he's got to have a role. He, when you watch them practice, he has a different gear, an explosiveness, a suddenness to him which is hard to, to describe. You'd have to see it. But you know when you're watching guys, you know five guys run the same route. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And one guy just looks different coming off the ball and blowing past the defender. You're like oh well that was different just because you're you're looking at it side by side by side. That's Trey Wilson. Roman mothershed is 6 foot 5, spent most of spring running with the Twos, but he's hard to ignore because he made a ton of plays with the Twos and at six five is likely a big body target you'd love to have in in tandem with trade as Green around the goal line. And then there's Philip Wright, the only returning receiver and from Destrehan who can flat out fly and so he might have a role in this offense as well. So if you're asking, you know Kiffin said 4, 5, 6. Well the first four I think are easy with Brown, Watkins, Harrison, Elzie, and then you got the next group of Wilson, Mothershed and Wright. And look, Corey Barber made some nice plays as well. All that to say you it's almost like a conference that like the Big 12 a couple of years ago where Arizona State was picked dead last and won the league. It's because you didn't have a great elite team and nobody was just a total bottom feeder. Everybody was kind of clumped right in the middle of a lot of solid teams that feels like this receiver room. So which can be the most effective and efficient in running this? Which group can be the most effective and efficient running this offense? Can catch the ball, can get open, can be productive and then you also have depth in case if you do have injuries or setbacks throughout the course of the season. So two position groups as we finish spring that I was most interested in talking about with respect to LSLU in the first spring under Lane Kiffin. Got a thought? Be sure you leave your comments below. We always appreciate that. So do me a favor. If you're on podcast, please subscribe to your favorite podcast app Radis. Leave a review YouTube smash that like button. Subscribe to the channel Hit the Bell so you're notified whenever we post a new video and and let a friend know if they love the Tigers. We got you every single day. It is locked on lsu, your team every day.

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