Desmond Howard calls out Blake Baker for week 1 loss to USC

The LSU defense showed improvement from last season during Sunday night’s loss to USC. But when the unit needed to come up big and make a stop late, it failed to do so.

The Trojans outscored LSU 14-3 in the fourth quarter and had two 60-plus yard touchdown drives in the final 7 minutes to secure the win. ESPN college football analyst Desmond Howard said on College Football Live Tuesday that he was disappointed with Tigers defensive coordinator Blake Baker and his group down the stretch.

CLICK HERE to go to PrizePicks and use code ON3 to receive a guaranteed $50 once you play $5 in lineups!

Blake Baker returned to LSU this offseason after spending the previous two years as the defensive coordinator at Missouri.

“Well guys, when I watch a game of this magnitude, I think about the storylines. One of the biggest storylines coming into this season was how LSU, they went out and got Blake Baker from Missouri as their defensive coordinator. They made him the highest-paid assistant coach in the FBS. … Because their defense was trash last year,” Desmond Howard said.

Watch College Football Games Live -Try for Free Fubo! Click HERE NOW

“I’m saying, ‘OK, this is the moment.’ There’s always the moment. Either it’s the Heisman moment or a moment as a coach, where you can separate yourself from the other coaches. And when USC had the ball with less than two minutes left, I said ‘This it the Blake Baker moment. Is he going to live up to the hype, to the amount of money they paid for him to come to Baton Rouge?’”

Unfortunately for the Tigers, Baker and his unit did not. The game was tied at 20 when USC got the ball back at its own 25-yard line with 1:47 remaining.

USC proceeded to go 75 yards in eight plays while using almost all of the clock. The drive was punctuated by a Woody Marks 13-yard touchdown run that all but put the game away.

“They failed miserably,” Howard said. “So I’m looking at this Blake Baker experience right now thinking, ‘You know, they played well. Don’t get it twisted. The defense played better than they did a year ago.’

“But when you’re the highest-paid assistant then this is the moment where you start to separate yourself from the rest of the DCs, because you make a big stop in a big game against the USC Trojans, and they weren’t able to do that. They came up short.”