Two years ago, LSU sported one of the worst defenses that I’ve seen in my lifetime, and the Tigers axed their defensive coordinator and brought in Blake Baker from Missouri, who helped stabilize things a bit. They improved to a middle-of-the-road average as a unit that had some decent pass defense chops while struggling against the run.
So far in 2025, they’ve improved further, only giving up 19 points per game. Their pass defense has been outstanding, and they’re forcing 1.5 turnovers per game. The problem
is that the last two weeks, they’ve given up 31 points to Vanderbilt and 49 to Texas A&M. In both games, they’ve been absolutely shredded by Diego Pavia and Marcel Reese rushing the ball with QB keepers.
Sound familiar?
Fun fact, Blake Baker runs a very similar 3-3-5 scheme with a lot of single-high coverage to what Kane Wommack runs at Alabama. For whatever reason, it seems to schematically struggle with rushing QBs.
The strength of this team has been the secondary and the linebackers.
In the backfield, LSU really opened up the pocketbooks this offseason and brought in a trio of top-of-the-market transfers in cornerback Mansoor Delane and safeties A.J. Halucy and Tamarus Cooley.
Delane in particular has been arguably the top corner in the SEC and leads the team with 7 pass breakups as a man-coverage specialist. Haulcy has also been a lightning rod at safety, leading the team with 63 tackles and a couple of interceptions. As a group, they’re only giving up 190 passing yards per game.
The linebacker group features Harold Perkins as sort of a hybrid safety/linebacker. The former star pass rusher has had a long career of never living up to his early pass rush chops for various reasons (position changes, injury, etc), but he’s still a supreme athlete. Star middle linebacker Whit Weeks has been arguably the best player on the team last two years, but he’s most likely going to miss this week with an ankle issue.
The LSU defensive line has been the weak link of the defense thus far. Defensive ends Patrick Payton and Jack Pyburn have a couple of sacks between them, and defensive tackles Bernard Gooden and Dominick McKinley are… there. They’re not awful or anything. This is still a top 25-defense in most metrics, and that doesn’t happen without solid play across the board. But they’ve also been far from impactful and have struggled to get to QBs all season.
Alabama will likely try to take advantage of the LSU defensive line with a run-heavy game early on. The question is… Can they actually capitalize on it? To this point, I’m not sure the Tide has proven they can.
If not, the game will once again come back to the passing game. LSU’s weaker pass rush will give Ty Simpson plenty of time to work, and I expect he’ll make his fair share of yards against them. That said, I also think their DBs will win a few reps, and Simpson throws his next interception. It won’t be an easy one for Alabama. Let’s go with 27 points for the Tide.
