Predicting the win total ceiling, floor for LSU in 2024

With spring football in the rearview mirror the long summer stretch is upon us. With it comes the chance to take a real in-depth look at each team and there are few better places to start than at LSU.

The Tigers are coming off a second straight 10-win season under coach Brian Kelly, but LSU will have to replace a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and two first-round NFL Draft picks at receiver. Meanwhile, it has to hope its defense is shored up considerably.

On3’s Andy Staples sat down with Cody Bellaire to discuss LSU’s outlook in 2024, and they did their best to establish a ceiling and a floor for the Tigers this fall.

“The ceiling is a CFP berth, like a 10-2 at-large CFP,” Staples said. “I’m not guaranteeing any wins in the CFP, but the ceiling is getting in. The floor is 7-5? 6-6?”

Let’s take a closer look at their predictions and the justification for them inside.

CEILING: College Football Playoff appearance

Both Staples and Bellaire felt pretty good about LSU’s potential to have a really good offense again, even with Jayden Daniels now off to the NFL ranks.

It just may not look quite the same.

“I do feel good about where their offense is at. I love, love, love their offensive line,” Staples said. “Love the fact that they can probably run the ball too, along with having a good quarterback ascension plan, having receivers who are going to come in, you have guys who played behind Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. You also have CJ Daniels you brought in from Liberty who could be very good.”

Bellaire was perhaps even more bullish on the offense.

“Offensively I think they’re going to be great,” Bellaire said. “Now I think it’s going to be a complete 180 from what we looked at last year with the Heisman-winning Jayden Daniels and airing it out to Brian Thomas and Malik Nabers all over the place. I think Kaleb Jackson is going to be the engine that runs that offense. Plus they have two potential first-round picks on the offensive line in Will Campbell and Emery Jones.

“I think they’re going to run their tails off and it’s going to look a lot like the early 2000s LSU teams in terms of offense where they’re going to run the ball and they’re going to pound the ball 25, 30 plus times per game. And hopefully that helps keep the defense off the field.”

Is that enough to get LSU into the playoffs? It likely depends on just how much progress the defense makes.

FLOOR: 7-5 or 6-6 regular season

When you start talking about LSU’s floor in 2024 the first thing that comes to mind is the defense. It has been the problem spot in recent years. And the Tigers probably haven’t fared quite as well in the transfer portal as they’d have hoped.

What does that mean for the defense? Well, the jury is still out.

“We had a long talk with Billy Embody on the show on Tuesday,” Staples said. “And I was not jolted with much confidence for LSU’s defense. I did not get that surge of confidence that I was hoping Billy might be able to give me.”

Bellaire broke down where the problems are.

“I think this is a team that had some serious issues on the defensive side of the ball in particular,” Bellaire said. “They lose Matt House, they bring in Blake Baker from Missouri. Love Blake Baker, great guy, great coach. But the thing is, and I think the college football community would agree with this statement, it’s about the players. You can bring all the coaches in the world that you want but if you don’t have the guys out on the field to do the job it doesn’t matter.”

That’s where LSU’s misses in the transfer portal hurt. It’s not that it’s been a complete zero, it’s just that the Tigers have missed on some guys they wanted that could have filled a need.

“I think they did do a little bit of a job on the defensive back end with Austin Ausberry from Auburn,” Bellaire said. “They bring in Jardin Gilbert from Texas A&M. But they’ve only brought in one corner in what was arguably the worst position group on the roster last year. They take Jyaire Brown from Ohio State. They bring in one interior defensive lineman in Gio Paez from Wisconsin. They lost three to the portal, plus they lose Maason Smith and Mekhi Wingo to the NFL.

“Look, I understand trusting in a developmental approach. I do. They bring in some young talented guys like Gabriel Reliford on the D-line. They bring in Dashawn McBryde to fill in the back half. But this is a group that needed help up front and at the corner position and I just don’t think that was addressed this offseason, and that’s going to pay dividends in this 2024 season. I just don’t know what this defense looks like.”

If things don’t improve considerably, LSU could be looking at a worst-case scenario near .500.