Urban Meyer poaches member of LSU staff to join him with Jaguars
Urban Meyer is looking to the college ranks for help with his offense. Unfortunately for the LSU Tigers, his focus didn’t stray from one of the members of their staff.
Kyle Caskey, an offensive analyst on Ed Orgeron’s LSU staff, has departed for a position on the staff of Meyer’s Jaguars, according to FootballScoop.
Moreover, this isn’t the 42-year old’s first foray into the league. Previously, Caskey served as a coach with the Cincinnati Bengals and the Detroit Lions.
In Cincinnati, Caskey broke in as the team’s quality control coach under Marvin Lewis. Afterwards, he worked his way up to the team’s full-time running back coach.
Following Lewis’ departure from the Bengals, Caskey joined Matt Patricia’s staff in Detroit. He was the Lions running back coach for two seasons, but was left unretained as Dan Campbell replaced Patricia.
Then, earlier this year, he joined the LSU staff, where Caskey was working with the Tigers’ running backs. Fast forward, it wound up being a short stay for the coach in Baton Rouge.
Now, Caskey hopes to help improve Meyer’s offense in any way possible. However, the unit has suffered turmoil over the last couple days.
Their two first round selections have been in the news for the wrong reasons, as Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne each had rough weeks.
While Lawrence struggled in the team’s preseason game against the New Orleans Saints, Etienne suffered an injury that ended his rookie season before it got going.
Urban Meyer, Trevor Lawrence on Jaguars’ offensive struggles
While Monday night’s outing was bleak at times, Lawrence did finish 14-of-23 for 113 yards, without a turnover. Progress over perfection, but Lawrence remains optimistic.
“I got out of the pocket a couple of times, so that was an improvement,” Lawrence said. “Overall, as an offense and as a team, we’ve got a lot of work to do. But I think we’re heading in the right direction, for sure.”
On the other hand, Meyer didn’t hold back – but also didn’t overreact when analyzing his starting offense after two preseason outings.
“We’ve got to click a little bit more,” Meyer said after the Jags dropped to 0-2 in the preseason.” We’ve still got some work to do.”
For Meyer, the key to success focuses on Lawrence developing chemistry with the veteran talent surrounding him, while simultaneously mastering a new offense at the same time as the entire unit.
“The starting offense, two weeks in a row, we’re just struggling to get into some rhythm,” Meyer said. “We’re not balanced right now.”
Amidst a shaky start, Meyer and Lawrence remain optimistic about the Jaguars season. With Kyle Caskey joining the staff, maybe he can help steady the ship as the season draws closer.