[autotag]Jayden Daniels[/autotag] showed flashes of promise during his first three seasons of college football at Arizona State. But it wasn’t until the signal-caller arrived at LSU ahead of the 2022 season that things really took off for him.
After a solid first year with the team, he became arguably the best player in the entire country during his final season in 2023. He won the Heisman Trophy and ultimately became the second pick in the draft for the Washington Commanders.
Daniels credited the culture at LSU for helping prepare him for the next level.
“It was just different,” he said of LSU, per On3’s Matthew Brune. “The football aspect, the resources you had and everyday life is nothing but football out there. They live, breathe and sleep football at LSU, so you have to get accustomed to that. If you don’t love football they’re going to run you out of that stadium real fast. The guys you hang with are from the south so football is all they know and is their way of getting out of whatever circumstances they were in. Every day in practice we’re going back and forth, we’re competing and it just brings that competitive edge out of you. I always had it in me, but being down there you walk around like ‘I have that dog in me’ and if I make a play I’m going to let you know about it.”
Daniels added that the players at LSU have a professional mindset, something that was a bit of a difference coming from the West Coast.
“How it was out there was how it is in the pros where everyone is trying to feed their families,” he said. “For me, I learned how to deal with different personalities at LSU. I watched [autotag]Malik Nabers[/autotag] eat and he has a personality on him. We’re chill out here (on the West Coast), but out there they’re not. It’s just learning how to deal with everybody.”
Now in the NFL, Daniels will hope those lessons prove to be beneficial as he looks to lead Washington to its first playoff win since 2005.
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