WATCH: Brian Kelly talks LSU Spring Practice
The LSU football team returned to the practice fields on Tuesday following a week off for spring break.
The Tigers are still missing a number of players as they recover from injury, which includes one of the most talented players on the roster in defensive lineman Maason Smith.
LSU head coach Brian Kelly circled Smith as one of the players expected to establish his name on the national scene during the 2022 season. But on the opening defensive series of the season, Smith suffered a knee injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the year.
Kelly summed up Smith’s eventual return as “immense”.
“We had great edge presence last year with Harold and BJ, but you could fan or chip one side because we didn’t have a great interior pass rush presence,” Kelly said. “Now you move Maason to the inside, and I don’t know how many sacks he’ll have. You can’t single block him. We couldn’t. When you start to move the center to him or use a back inside, our edge players are in one-on-ones and we’ll have a really good balance pass rush. He brings that presence that we didn’t have last year.”
Kelly also has his eyes on BJ Ojulari’s replacement at the JACK position.
The second-year headman said freshman five-star Dashawn Womack can play defensive end or the JACK position, though he’s sidelined as he recovers from shoulder surgery.
Through three practices this spring, the Tigers have been led at the position by Texas transfer Ovie Oghoufo and Oregon transfer Bradyn Swinson.
“There are young players in there and we brought in an experienced transfer in Ovie Oghoufo, who has played a lot of that position in a similar role at Texas,” Kelly said. “We felt like him and Bradyn Swinson added some veteran presence to go with the young players and that was the mix we were looking for. Ovie has been really good as a mentor to some of the players right away and some of the young players have been further along than we thought. That will be a position that continues to evolve, but we wanted someone coaching that position on a full-time basis because it’s hard for the defensive line coach to break down all of the responsibilities of that position when you’re coaching the interior guys as well.”
Kelly also used Tuesday’s press conference as a chance to shine some additional light on quarterback Jayden Daniels’ decision to return to LSU and forgo the NFL Draft.
“When Jayden made the decision to come back, there were a number of things that were on the table for discussion,” Kelly said. “You start with the physical development, looking at how we can put together a plan for his strength and conditioning. Part of this is we had to recruit him back, we had to give him a comprehensive plan about what we were gonna do in the weight room, how we were gonna continue to develop him technically as a quarterback, all of those pieces.
