LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels named offensive captain for Week 2
LSU football announced three permanent team captains this year — Ali Gaye, BJ Ojulari and Mike Jones Jr. — all on the defense, with an offensive captain being picked each week. For the Tigers’ Week 2 matchup against Southern, quarterback Jayden Daniels got the nod as the fourth captain.
The Tigers lost their opener to Florida State last weekend, and Daniels was slow to get going in his first LSU start. However, he got going late and helped lead a comeback that fell one-point short at the very end. Now comes this vote of confidence in Daniels as the leader of LSU’s offense.
And according to head coach Brian Kelly, swapping out Daniels for backup Garrett Nussmeier, who competed for the starting job in fall camp, never came to mind.
“It was never a conversation. There was never a time during the game where Mike and I — Mike Denbrock, that is, or Joe Sloan — had a conversation about, ‘Hey, let’s make a change here. Let’s see if that’s the best option for us.’ That was never a conversation. And right now, it’s — Jayden’s our No. 1 quarterback,” Kelly said on Tuesday.
LSU’s front seven is well represented by the captains
As voted by their teammates, the permanent 2022 LSU captains are Gaye, Ojulari and Jones Jr. All three players come from the defensive side of the ball — Gaye is a defensive linemen, Ojulari an edge rusher (and wearer of the coveted No. 18), and Jones is an off-ball linebacker.
With the offense conspicuously absent, the official LSU football Twitter account clarified that an offensive captain will be elected each week.
While Ojulari, a junior, and Gaye, a senior, both played their entire careers at LSU to this point, the same is not true for Jones. He transferred to LSU from Clemson prior to last season, and has clearly shown his teammates the necessary qualities for them to elect him a leader.