Ali Gaye says LSU Tigers are ready for their season opener

With the college football season ready to kickoff, Ali Gaye and the LSU Tigers are hungry to redeem themselves. After a historic championship run in 2019, the Tigers became an afterthought in 2020. With them losing multiple key players and coaches after their title season, it was expected for the Tigers to have a down year. However, it was not expected that LSU would struggle throughout the year, barely finishing the season with a 5-5 record.

Ready to start

At the teams’ player press conference yesterday, Ali Gaye, LSU’s senior defensive end, spoke about the team’s eagerness to face off against UCLA in their season opener.

“We coming man, we’re coming. I know my teammates feel the same way as me. Every time I think of it, I’m like ‘Wow, it’s here.’ I feel like it’s been a long time coming,” he said. “That first game it doesn’t matter who we play, all we care about is going all out. I’m excited, we’re all excited because we beat each other up all practice and now we’re ready to beat someone else up other than ourselves.”

Defensive woes

While the Tigers had struggled all over the field last year, their biggest struggles came on defense. LSU finished the year with the 99th ranked scoring defense, compared to 2019 when they were ranked 31st. They ended 2020 allowing 34.9 points per game. They gave up the most passing yards in the NCAA at 323 yards per game. But, they were still top-10 in turnovers per game at 2.2 despite their other struggles.

When asked about the team’s struggles from last season and whether or not it motivated them Gaye added this.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to forget about 2020. It’s always something that’s going to be in the back of our heads, and it’ll remind us of where we used to be and now where we need to be,” he commented. “We always remember 2020 as one of those years where things didn’t go right and things didn’t go the way we wanted them to go, but remembering that now, we use it as motivation, but we don’t put too much into it.

“We focus on what’s here and what’s now and the opportunities we have now to be a better team and better defense and better family. We don’t put too much into 2020 because we know things are better and we’re moving in the right direction.”

Tigers defense this year

Gaye is a Junior College transfer (JUCO) and 2020 was his first year on the team. He played in all ten games for the Tigers last year and finished the season with 32 tackles, 9.5 for a loss, two sacks, seven pass deflections, a forced fumble, and an interception.

This year, Gaye will play an even bigger role on their defense. He’s starting at defensive end for the Tigers this season. And their defensive line looks to be a savvy veteran bunch. All four starters are classified as a senior or graduate senior. In the secondary, LSU has two of the best man corners in college football in sophomore Eli Ricks and junior Derek Stingley Jr. Stingley is on several college awards watchlist this season.

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