LSU’s defense is the team’s biggest question mark as it prepares to begin the 2024 campaign against USC’s air raid offense in Las Vegas on Sunday night, and the defensive tackle group, in particular, is the area of most concern.
The Tigers lost three players who started games at the position last year and returned just two with game experience. [autotag]Jacobian Guillory[/autotag], now in his fifth season at LSU, seems to be the top guy.
During his game week press conference on Monday, [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] detailed how Guillory has improved this offseason.
“He’s been our best defensive tackle, our most consistent, starting with the tail end of last year and that continued through the spring and into preseason camp,” Kelly said. “He’s extremely strong, physically strong, can hold the point, plays with great leverage and technique. He’s really come along incredibly well in terms of the ability to use his hands and disengage and find the football.
“It’s one thing to have strength at the point of attack, but if you can’t find the football, meh, OK, you just hold the point. What he’s been able to do is use great strength, and now he’s controlling the blocker and finding the football.”
Guillory’s production has been limited to this point in his career despite appearing in 39 games. He has totaled just 51 tackles, 27 of which came last season.
While that’s a respectable total, Kelly thinks Guillory will be a lot more productive in the tackling department this fall.
“What do I think we’ll see? He’s going to make a lot of tackles,” Kelly said. “Defensive tackles, if you look at their sheets at the end of the day in terms of assisted tackles, even unassisted tackles, sometimes they show up with maybe two, three, that’s a big day. He’s going to be a guy that’s going to be involved in the tackle sheet, and that’s saying a lot in a defensive tackle.”
The Tigers added two transfers at the position this offseason in Wisconsin’s [autotag]Gio Paez[/autotag] and Grand Valley State’s [autotag]Jay’Viar Suggs[/autotag], who is making the leap from the Division II ranks.
But neither brings SEC experience to the table, something Guillory boasts quite a lot of entering what should be the best season of his career as he becomes a week-to-week starter.
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