UCLA Football Preview: Linebackers Are the Strength of the LSU Defense
UCLA Football Preview: Linebackers Are the Strength of the LSU Defense
The Tigers' top three tacklers are all linebackers.
Now, let’s turn to the defensive side of the ball for LSU. As I mentioned in the coaching staff preview, new LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker looks to be running a 3-3-5 base defense, where one of the three linebackers is a hybrid linebacker/edge rusher/defensive end.
At least that was the case until last week against the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Against Southern Cal and Nicholls, the Tigers started the game with five defensive backs. Two of them were corners while the other three were listed as safeties.
But last week, rather than starting Jardin Gilbert or Sage Ryan the guys who started as the team’s third safety in the previous two weeks, Baker inserted sophomore linebacker Whit Weeks into the starting lineup.
Now the reality is that, in football, the starting lineup is just the guys who played the first play of the game on the offensive or defensive side of the ball and it doesn’t mean that that Tigers moved away from their base defense throughout the course of the game against the Gamecocks. The change could have been caused by something the LSU coaching staff saw on film about the South Carolina offense that made them decide to switch things up.
Alternatively, it could be that the starting lineup from Weeks 1 and 2 wasn’t their “typical” lineup, though I’m more doubtful of that.
The only way to really know if this was a change in scheme would be to look at the game films from all three games the Tigers have played. Most likely, I’d expect that the Tigers have probably alternated their personnel in all three games depending on the particular situation in the game in order to try to confuse opponents by giving them different defensive packages as part of the cat-and-mouse games that coaches play to try to gain an advantage.
Let’s look at the Tigers’ defensive personnel.
Defensive Line
At defensive end, expect to see senior Sai'vion Jones. He is being billed as the “next great LSU defensive lineman,” and it’s easy to see why. Jones leads the defensive linemen in both tackles (12) and TFLs (3) and he’s tied for the team lead in sacks with three. He’s also forced two fumbles and had a quarterback hurry.
Grad transfer Gio Paez will start as one of the defensive tackles. While Paez transferred to LSU this year from Wisconsin, he grew up in Los Angeles where he played at Cathedral High School before playing at William A. Hough High School in Cornelius, North Carolina. He is tenth on the team in tackles with nine including one TFL.
While Jacobian Guillory started the first two games as the other defensive tackle, he was lost for the season to an achilles tear against Nicholls, making a “thin defensive line even thinner,” according to the folks over at And The Valley Shook. In his place, the Tigers started Paris Shand last week, giving the Arizona transfer his first start for the Tigers even though he played in 13 games last season. He contributed less last week as a starter than he did in each of the two previous games when he didn’t start. He had two tackles last week while he had three tackles against both Southern Cal and Nicholls. Of course, that could be because he’s listed on the roster as a defensive end and he’s now starting at defensive tackle.
Linebackers
The linebacking corps seems to be the heart of the LSU defense as they are the unit which seems to make the most tackles.
The Jack linebacker is really a hybrid defensive end/linebacker. On one hand, expect to see the Jack as part of a four man pass rush quite a bit, but he may also drop off into coverage to help out the corners. In fact, starting Jack Bradyn Swinson is actually listed as a defensive end on the LSU roster. Swinson really embodies the pass rush part of the Jack role. He is tied with Jones for the team lead in sacks and he leads the team in TFLs with four, even though he only has a total of eleven tackles on the season. So, he’s the guy the Tigers will expect to be blowing up opponent plays in the backfield.
The other two starting linebackers will be Greg Penn III and Harold Perkins Jr. These two guys are ranked second and third on the team in tackles, respectively. Penn has 17 tackles including one TFL and a forced fumble while Perkins has 15 tackles with 1.5 TFL and a fumble recovery.
Now, this is where the LSU defense gets interesting. After playing in a reserve role against Southern Cal and Nicholls, sophomore linebacker Whit Weeks got the start last week in place of the team’s third safety. In the first two games, Weeks made six tackles in each game. When he started last week, he made 11. So, this raises the question as to whether this could be a shift the team will stick with today against the Bruins or will they go back to using the third safety? Either way, expect to see a lot of LSU’s leading tackler.
Secondary
Shifting to the secondary, sophomore Ashton Stamps looks to be developing into the team’s lockdown corner. Just three games into the season, Stamps’ twelve tackles are more than half as many tackles as he made all of last season and he has already doubled the number of pass breakups he had last year. He hasn’t picked off a pass yet. So, let’s hope that continues today.
The rest of the secondary might be in flux. Sage Ryan started at the other corner against the Trojans, but PJ Woodland got the start the following week when Ryan shifted to being one of the starting safeties to allow for the return of Zy Alexander from an ACL injury, according to NOLA.com. But Ryan didn’t get the start last week, due to the team starting Whit Weeks at linebacker instead of playing five DBs.
Last week, starting safety Jordan Allen was out with a lower leg injury, prompting the team to start Dashawn Spears in his place, according to the Lafayette Advertiser. Will Allen return today or will Spears get another start? Either way, both defenders seem to make a lot of tackles.
Overall, the only thing that seems to be constant in the LSU secondary besides Ashton Stamps is change. Expect to see more of that today.
Analysis
With linebackers being one of the strengths of the LSU defense, expect the Bruin running game to continue to struggle to gain yards. If UCLA cannot effectively run the ball, it will force the offense to start throwing more against the Tiger secondary.
The good news about that is that the Tigers only have one interception this season.
Hopefully, Garbers can avoid making costly mistakes, but I’ll be concerned if UCLA gets into a shootout with Nussmeier and the Tiger offense.
Geaux Bruins!!!
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