BATON ROUGE — LSU football’s search for the first cornerback for its 2025 recruiting class is over as of Wednesday afternoon.
Brian Kelly and company were in hot pursuit of the top-rated corner prospect in the class in consensus five-star D.J. Pickett. And the Tigers made their biggest splash on the recruiting trail since landing the No. 1 quarterback in the 2025 class in Bryce Underwood as Pickett committed to LSU.
Pickett, the No. 9 overall rated prospect in the country per the 247Sports Composite, announced his decision on his mother’s birthday live on his Instagram page. The 6-4, 180-pound athlete chose LSU over Oregon, who many recruiting experts believed to be the frontrunner for his services, as well as Miami.
Landing Pickett is a massive boost for Kelly, cornerbacks coach Corey Raymond and defensive coordinator Blake Baker as he’s a guy that many recruiting analysts believe is ready to come in and compete for a starting job right away in college.
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Pickett’s path to a starting cornerback role at LSU appears almost written in stone as it’s defensive backfield has not played up to the standard the football program has become synonymous with since the days of Patrick Peterson and Tyrann Mathieu. Last season, LSU’s pass defense ranked among the bottom 20 in college football, something unheard of for the Tigers.
LSU did have another cornerback committed for the 2025 recruiting class at one point, four-star instate standout Jaboree Antoine from Westgate. But he decommitted back in June and will announce where he intends to go Saturday.
According to experts, LSU is not trending well to reclaim Antoine as he chooses between the home-state Tigers, Florida State and Miami.
The Tigers still have the No. 6 ranked…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/lsu-football-makes-major-splash-232017931.html
Author : The Daily Advertiser
Publish date : 2024-07-17 23:20:17
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