9/20/2023 football Edit

LSU continues to get major contributions from true freshmen

Luke Hubbard • Death Valley Insider

Analyst

One of the stories of LSU Football since Brian Kelly took over has been the contribution the Tigers get from their true freshmen. Last year, it was Will Campbell, Emery Jones, Harold Perkins and Mason Taylor who stepped up, and this year, we've seen an abundance of freshmen take center stage.

So far this season, we've seen freshmen such as Zalance Heard, Whit Weeks, Kaleb Jackson and Da'Shawn Womack come in and earn snaps almost immediately for the Tigers. Brian Kelly has shown his willingness to play true freshmen if he believes they give LSU the best chance to win. He doesn't care if you've been a three-year starter, your job could easily be taken by a true freshman if he believes it's for the betterment of the team.

"I'm not afraid to play freshman, but I'm going to play the best players. If that's a freshman, I'm playing a freshman, if that's a graduate transfer, I'll play a graduate transfer. I think our track record shows that the best players are going to play, and if you're a freshman and you can handle it both mentally and physically, we'll put you one the field."

— Brian Kelly

It's not meant to be a recruiting tactic, but it certainly doesn't hurt when they're giving their pitch to a recruit. Coach Kelly and the rest of the staff can now go talk to recruits and tell them that if they come to LSU, they have a legitimate chance to earn valuable snaps as a true freshman, and they have the evidence to prove it. There isn't a single power five school in the nation that has gotten more out of their true freshman the past two seasons than LSU.

I don't expect the Tigers to have a freshman as impactful as Will Campbell, Emery Jones or Harold Perkins was last year, but they've already got a handful of guys who have stepped in during big moments and made plays.

The first example of this is Whit Weeks. After hardly playing the first two games, Weeks was thrown into the fire after Omar Speights was ruled out for Saturday's game against Mississippi State.

So how did he do on the road in a tough SEC environment?

He only had twice as many tackles as any other player on the team. On top of that, he allowed just two catches for 17-yards on 21 coverage snaps. And on top of that, he was the third highest graded pass rusher on LSU last week. Not too bad for a true freshman.

Another true freshman we saw making plays against Mississippi State was Ryan Yaites. The four-star corner from Denton, Texas saw his first game action on Saturday and played really well for the Tigers in his time on the field. He finished the game with the 5th best coverage grade on LSU's defense and allowed just one catch on eleven coverage snaps.

When Kelly talked about Weeks and Yaites' performances on Monday, all he could do was praise the freshman on how well they played.

"We knew what we had in [Weeks]. We had a young player, certainly a true freshman, but he can run all over the field, he's extremely athletic. I think you get a little concerned when you play a lot of true freshman, certainly in the backend of your defense. Ryan Yaites came in and I thought he played really well, he was clean, he was disciplined in his alignments, he was assignment correct. But, you know, we had three true freshman on the field on the road in the SEC. I don't think you're running around going 'oh this is great,' but we had confidence in them that they could go out and play well."

— Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly told us on his radio show last Thursday that we were going to see Da'Shawn Womack play on Saturday, and while it wasn't as many snaps as I was expecting, we did see No. 16 take the field.

Womack saw 14 snaps on Saturday, eight as a pass rusher and six in run defense. His name didn't appear in the box score, but in those eight pass rushing snaps, Womack recorded two pressures and earned the Tigers 6th best pass rush grade.

I expect we'll continue to see the four-star from Baltimore, Maryland on the field more and more as Coach Kelly likes to rotate his defensive lineman during the game to keep fresh legs on the field.

On offense, Kaleb Jackson is one of the more notable true freshmen who heard his number called down the stretch on Saturday. Everyone's going to talk about that huge truck he laid on one of Mississippi State's defensive backs, but he carried the ball well and was able to find holes or bounce it outside if nothing was developing.

Jackson is the true freshman I think will make the biggest impact this season. His physicality and explosiveness will make him hard to leave off the field with the more experience he gets. He's in a backfield that doesn't have a bonafide RB1, so I expect that with his talent and raw athleticism, he'll continue to get more and more touches moving forward.

Zalance Heard is another true freshman who was on the field this past weekend, seeing time at Right Tackle for the second straight week. He earned 19 snaps against Mississippi State, and in that time, he allowed one sack and had one penalty.

As we saw last year with Campbell and Jones, there's going to be some growing pains for a freshman tackle. I believe Coach Kelly thinks that the optimal offensive line group consists of Campbell at LT, Heard at RT and Jones at RG, so they're doing their best to get him some experience when the opportunity comes.

As we get to SEC play and the games start getting closer, Heard's snaps may become more few and far between, but the more experience he can get this season, the better the offensive line will be next season.