BREAKING: LSU to hire former Missouri DC Blake Baker

Former Missouri defensive coordinator, Blake Baker, has agreed to take the open defensive coordinator position at LSU.

On Wednesday, Brian Kelly let go four members on the defensive coaching staff; DC Matt House, safeties coach Kerry Cooks, cornerbacks coach Robert Steeples and defensive line coach Jimmy Lindsey.

Dating back to November, Baker's name has been brought up as a potential replacement for Matt House if he was let go, which was reported by Death Valley Insider Publisher, Jefferson Powell. Just hours after he was released, Baker's name began to gain more traction.

On Thursday, the signing was made official. Baker to LSU has been in the works for months now, and Kelly is finally getting his defensive coordinator.

Here's everything we know about LSU's new DC:

A couple years after graduating from Tulane, where he played linebacker for the Green Wave, Baker began his collegiate coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Texas. He'd serve in that position for three seasons from 2010-2012 before accepting the safeties coach job at Arkansas State working under Manny Diaz.

Baker immediately showed promise and was poached by Louisiana Tech the following season when Diaz took the job as the Bulldogs defensive coordinator. However, Diaz moved on to Mississippi State after one season and Baker took over as the Bulldogs defensive coordinator in 2015, where he'd stay for four seasons.

As the Louisiana Tech defensive coordinator, Baker built LA Tech's defense into one of the best non-power five units. In 2018, his final season in Ruston, he led the 38th ranked scoring defense, giving up 23.5 points per game, which also ranked 15th among non-power five schools.

Baker was quickly scooped up by Miami in 2019 to fill their open defensive coordinator position when Manny Diaz was promoted to head coach. He'd serve there for just two seasons before making his first stop in Baton Rouge as LSU's linebackers coach in 2021.

He filled that role for just one season. When Head Coach Ed Orgeron was relieved of his duties, Baker was then picked up by Missouri to fill their vacant DC position. He's been the Tigers defensive coordinator since, and in 2023, he led Missouri to the No. 28 scoring defense (21.8 PPG) and No. 38 total defense (347.8 YPG).

Blake Baker has been a very aggressive defensive coordinator in his time at Missouri. His Tigers were very blitz heavy, and in result, they finished third in the SEC in sacks and eighth in all of college football in sacks per game. They also finished ninth in team sack percentage, bringing down opposing quarterbacks on over 9% of plays.

We saw this first hand in Missouri's game against LSU. Baker's Tigers only got Daniels on the ground twice, but he was pressured on 10 of his 23 pass attempts.

Baker was LSU's linebackers coach in 2021, and he knows how to get the most out of his linebackers in the pass rush. He helped Damone Clark finish the season with 23 pressures and six sacks in just 76 pass rush snaps. He also helped Ty'Ron Hopper, Missouri's starting linebacker, finished the 2023 season with 17 pressures on just 86 pass rush snaps while recording three sacks. For reference, Harold Perkins rushed the passer 166 times this year and recorded 24 pressures and six sacks.

We know LSU has leaned towards using Perkins as a coverage linebacker for development purposes, but imagine Perkins rushing the passer in Bakers defense. Even if he doesn't total 150+ pass rush snaps, I'd be willing to bet his numbers go up solely because of the scheme.

Under Baker, I expect this defense to be much more aggressive than under Matt House. The Tigers finished the year averaging 2.5 sacks per game, and with most of the same personnel in the front seven, I'd expect that number to increase.

I talked earlier about Baker's first stop at LSU as the Tigers linebackers coach in 2021, but Baker's ties to LSU run much deeper than that.

Baker is married to Roslyn Jones. I don't know how many of you know that name, but Jones is a former All-SEC soccer player at LSU who's a native of Mandeville, Louisiana.

In 2006, her sophomore season, Jones earned Second-Team All-SEC honors. She played in 82 games in her career, which at the time was the most of any LSU soccer player in program history.

Jones finished her career inside the top-10 in career points, game-winning goals, assists, goals, shots on goal and goals per game.

On top of coaching at LSU and his wife playing soccer in Baton Rouge, Baker also has coaching ties to Joe Sloan, LSU's current quarterbacks coach.

Both Sloan and Baker coached on Louisiana Tech's coaching staff from 2014-2018. Baker was the safeties coach in 2014 and the Bulldogs DC from 2015-2018 while Sloan coached inside receivers and was a recruiting coordinator. The two battled it out every day in practice for years as Sloan tried to find ways to beat Bakers defense and Baker tried to find ways to slow down Sloan's receivers.

So, not only does he have ties to LSU in his coaching career, his wife is also from Louisiana and was a star athlete for the Tigers. His ties to Baton Rouge run deep, and that's one of the reasons I think he accepted the job.

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