White changed tackling style, reflects on suspension, playing Alabama in 19
BATON ROUGE, La. -- As if anxiously pacing back and forth in the locker room, alone, wasn’t hard enough.
Devin White worked feverishly to keep his mind off the fact he was only feet away from the Bermuda grass inside Tiger Stadium, but could not step foot on it until the third quarter of what’s annually the team’s highest-stakes game of the season on the first Saturday of November.
Push-ups helped the time go by a moderately quicker. That didn't stop White from reflecting on why he was handed a half-game suspension to begin with, though.
White shoved Mississippi State quarterback Nick Fitzgerald into that same Bermuda grass on Oct. 20 in the final minutes of a 19-3 victory. Officials initially flagged LSU’s junior middle linebacker for targeting, and after further review, withheld the call to the displeasure of an inflamed crowd in Baton Rouge. Public figures and famous LSU alums publicly criticized the SEC officials. Banners were raised across the Southeast — miles away from LSU’s campus all the way to Birmingham, Ala., the Southeastern Conference’s headquarters — serving as a constant reminder of how the fans felt about the inauspicious targeting call on their prized defender, who was now forced to miss the first half against the nation’s consensus No. 1-ranked team.
In the moment that Saturday night, White never fretted about being ejected or missing time the next game. He never leads with his helmet, he said, a lesson he learned in December 2017 when Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier suffered a spinal injury making a tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals, a thoughtless act that has since cost Shazier his 2018 season and perhaps his future in professional football.
White, who watched that Steelers-Bengals rivalry contest, adjusted the way he tackles in light of Shazier’s battle back from a serious spinal injury. He was so confident his targeting call would be reversed that he walked over to coach Ed Orgeron inferring he’d be right back on the field.
“I said, ‘Oh my God!’” White remembers.
“I was coming full speed. I’m 238 pounds, so it’s hard to pull off when you’re going full speed to hit the quarterback, so instead of me drilling him, I pushed him to the ground. I guess the refs saw something I didn’t see. I had to respect the call and move forward, but it was a bogus call. I watched it over and over and over, and once they called it, I went over to Coach O as they reviewed it and I said I’d be good, but the call stood.
“I don’t lead with my head. Ryan Shazier, that injury meant a lot to me, knowing who he was and seeing him lead with his head and mess up his whole spin. I don’t want that to happen to me as a player. I would be devastated knowing I have to give up everything I love to do because of a hit like that.”
Over the past 11 months, White suggests his tackling style has been morphed in conjunction with the targeting rule and to protect himself from a career-threatening injury like the one Shazier sustained last year. Knowing that made it all the more difficult for LSU’s star ROVER to allow a half-game suspension marinate during a two-week stretch between games.
There were plenty of reminders, too. Billboards, GoFundMe campaigns, donations to the LSU veterinary school, even a flyover before kickoff against Alabama. The outpouring of support from the LSU community was far from surprising to White, but even he thought the fan base outdid themselves.
“It was very humbling,” he smiled. “I knew LSU fans were crazy. They love me because I show them the same type of love and respect, but that was overboard for me. I was very thankful for the support and how much I mean to this university. It makes me want to carry the university in my heart with great class. Those things … the DMs, the social media posts, it means a lot to me.”
The exhausting efforts were appreciated by White, but could not keep No. 40 from keeping his cool during his 30 minutes inside the LSU locker room in a clash featuring two of the top three teams in the country.
White estimated he did upwards of 100 push-ups, in between snaps, and did laps around the locker room to try and calm his nerves. He didn’t want to be alone. He couldn’t bear to be away from his team. And more pressing than that, he felt he could be a catalyst in the 16-0 lead Alabama secured while he was cooped up elsewhere in the stadium.
“It was hard,” White admitted. “I walked around the locker room the whole doing, doing push-ups. I was about to go crazy watching the game, knowing I could have made a lot of big plays in the first half while they were trying to balance themselves to see what was going to work. I was dropping down, just doing them (push-ups), hoping that the time would go by fast.”
“When that moment came, I was fired up and ready to go,” he said of his second-half appearance. “The last two weeks for me have been very emotional. I don’t think people really understand how much I love this game. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to strap up for the first two quarters against the best team in the world right now, it really hurt.”
In one half of action, White racked up eight total tackles, including five individual stops, good for third on the team behind Todd Harris, who replaced starting safety John Battle on the first defensive series, and Patrick Queen, who got the nod at ROVER in place of White as he served his suspension.
White’s third-quarter renaissance might have served as a personal triumph, but he alone could not deter the Crimson Tide from steamrolling the Tigers to a 29-0 victory. The loss marked Alabama’s eight victory in a row in its series with its LSU, means that White is now 0-3 in his career against the arch-rival.
Playing the role of wordsmith, White — a projected first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft — hinted that change is on the horizon. He referred to North Webster High School’s longstanding struggles against North Louisiana power Haynesville. White’s alma mater lost seven consecutive games to Haynesville from 2008 through 2014. That includes an aggregate score of 95-40 in favor of Haynesville White’s freshman, sophomore and junior years.
As a senior, however, White and the North Webster ended the streak, handing Haynesville a 34-13 loss.
Without making any promises, White hinted that LSU could follow a similar path when it meets Alabama in 2019, in Tuscaloosa. Should he stay, White would be a senior on that team, a common thread that worked for North Webster so many years ago.
“It’s very disappointing,” he said of his 0-3 mark against the Tide. “I had the same thing with my rival team Haynesville. They beat me every year, but my senior year, we beat them by 21. I’ll let you put that in your head …
“My senior year, everything changed. More leadership, more guys being in the system longer. Everyone knew what to expect. Everyone was older classmen and we got the job done.”
Caution: reading between the lines here may be dangerous.