UCLA Football Preview: LSU Has Two New Coordinators Despite Winning Ten Games Each Year Under Brian Kelly

Kelly lost his offensive coordinator to Notre Dame after last year and he fired his defensive coordinator.

In just his third year at LSU, head coach Brian Kelly had to replace both his offensive and defensive coordinators this year. (Photo Credit: Gus Stark/lsusports.net

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The last time UCLA played LSU, the unranked Bruins won what may have been the best win of the Chip Kelly era, a 38-27 win at home over the #16-ranked Tigers.

That game, of course, was the beginning of the end for LSU head coach Ed Orgeron, who made his famous quip about our “sissy blue” shirts. The Tigers went on to a 6-6 regular season and, by mid-October, the school had announced that Orgeron would not return in 2022.

To replace Orgeron, LSU hired Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly. Prior to signing his 10-year, $95 million contract, Kelly had compiled a 263-96-2 coaching record, including a 92-40 record at Notre Dame and a 118–35–2 mark at Grand Valley State, where he won two Division II national championships. In his first two seasons in Baton Rouge, Kelly has won 10 games each season.

Even though Kelly has had double digit wins in both of his previous seasons with LSU, it doesn’t mean that he’s avoided making changes on his coaching staff since his first season. Mike Denbrock, who was Kelly’s offensive coordinator for his first two seasons with the Tigers, chose to leave after last season to become the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame while Matt House, who was the team’s defensive coordinator for Kelly’s first two seasons in Baton Rouge, was let go after last season.

In place of Denbrock, Kelly promoted quarterback coach Joe Sloan to offensive coordinator. Of course, Sloan was the position coach last season for Heisman Trophy winner and former Arizona State quarterback Jayden Daniels.

Meanwhile, Kelly hired a guy who had left LSU right before he got there to be his new defensive coordinator. He hired Missouri DC Blake Baker. Baker had served as the Tigers’ linebackers coach during Orgeron’s final season with the Tigers.

Things didn’t start particularly well for Baker. The 13th-ranked Tigers gave up 14 fourth quarter points to Southern Cal to lose the first game of the season.

Last week, the defense almost let LSU down again by giving up nine fourth quarter points to give South Carolina a 33-29 lead with 10:34 to go. But the Tigers scored the game-winning touchdown with 1:12 left in the game to give LSU a 36-33 win and saving Baker from potential criticism about late points costing them another game.

Baker seems to run a 3-3-5 base defense. Though last week against South Carolina, the Tigers started a fourth linebacker, at least to begin the game, but we’ll look at that more when I look at the defense.

Let’s look at the LSU special teams.

Special Teams

Redshirt junior Damian Ramos will handle the placekicking duties for the Tigers. Ramos appears to be an above average college kicker. This season, he’s made three of four field goal attempts. In his previous two seasons, he was 22 of 29. He has also made 143 of 145 PAT attempts over his college career. That’s an unbelievable 98.6%! He was a perfect 77-for-77 last season and he’s 11-for-11 so far this year. He hasn’t missed an extra point since his redshirt freshman year when he missed two. Don’t count on him missing a PAT if the game comes down to that.

Three Tiger placekickers have kicked off this season for LSU. Ramos has kicked off just once this year and that came in the season opener against Southern Cal. Don’t expect to see him kicking off on Saturday. Junior Nathan Dilbert has kicked off seven times this year with five of them going for touchbacks, but those all came in LSU’s blowout of Nicholls State. So, don’t expect to see Dilbert kicking much on Saturday either.

Freshman Aeron Burrell was the primary kicker for kickoffs against both Southern Cal and South Carolina. It’s still possible that Kelly could opt to redshirt Burrell, especially with two other kickers on the roster, but he’s only played in two games before this week. So, I expect him to continue to be the main kickoff specialist for LSU on Saturday. Ten of Burrell’s eleven kickoffs so far have gone for touchbacks and he is averaging 65.4 yards per kickoff. I expect him to be the guy kicking off almost every time when UCLA visits this weekend.

The Tigers have used two punters so far this year. Grad transfer Blake Ochensdorf transferred to LSU this year from Louisiana Tech. So far this season, he’s only punted twice. One came against Southern Cal while the other one came against Nicholls State. Both punts landed inside the 20 and one was fair caught.

Redshirt junior Peyton Todd looks to be the Tigers’ starting punter. He’s punted nine times this season and is averaging 40.33 yards per punt. While five of his punts have been fair caught, only two of his punts have landed inside the 20.

The main returner for LSU is junior receiver Zavion Thomas, a transfer from Mississippi State. Thomas has returned all five punts that the Tigers have returned this season. His season-long has been 25 yards, but he’s only gained a grand total of 26 punt return yards for his other four punts. He’s also returned eight of the Tigers’ nine kickoffs with a 91-yarder being his longest. So, he can be potentially dangerous if he breaks free on a return. Super senior running back Josh Williams is the only other Tiger to return a kickoff this season. His only return went for 14 yards.


Go Bruins!!!

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