ESPN previews 2024 campaign for LSU as Brian Kelly enters Year 3

As Brian Kelly enters his third season at the helm in Baton Rouge, LSU faces quite a few questions.

The Tigers have a lot to replace, but at the same time, there’s hope that this team can make a run with some changes on the defensive side of the ball and the expanded College Football Playoff.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly is generally optimistic about the Tigers, who he listed among the conference title contenders in his SEC season preview. With that being said, Connelly wrote that it’s hard to gauge the program’s trajectory despite Kelly’s first two seasons being successful on paper.

“In two years with Brian Kelly, LSU has won 20 games, made an SEC championship-game appearance, added another Heisman to the trophy case (Jayden Daniels), beaten Alabama, gone 2-0 against Florida and won a bowl by 56 points,” Connelly wrote. “Considering the Tigers were 11-12 in the two seasons before Kelly’s arrival, that’s a pretty remarkable set of achievements.

“It’s strangely difficult to figure out where the Tigers program is headed, though. It isn’t really making up ground on Georgia, Texas enters the conference in better shape, and upstarts Ole Miss and Missouri have more buzz (for whatever that’s actually worth). All of LSU’s improvement has come on offense, too: The defense slumped to 52nd in SP+ last season even with one of the most disruptive players in the country (Harold Perkins Jr.). Special teams has been an ongoing issue, and now the offense has to replace Daniels, two first-round receivers and offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock.”

As Connelly mentions, LSU has a lot of new faces set to contribute on offense as well as a new play-caller with quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan taking over for Denbrock, who left to take the same role at Notre Dame. Still, he does think Sloan has quite a few pieces to work…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/espn-previews-2024-campaign-lsu-181425084.html

Author : LSU Tigers Wire

Publish date : 2024-07-29 18:14:25

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