Going to Alabama, Brian Kelly believes in LSU's defense

LSU head coach Brian Kelly has been more involved on the defensive side of the ball this year than in most of his 32 years as a head coach. It’s not hard to tell why when looking at the stats as the Tigers’ defensive unit has allowed good teams to carve it up routinely, but now preparing for Alabama, there have been tangible steps forward in practice.

That, in addition to the bye week and added preparation, give Kelly optimism that this defense is on track to reach its potential as a unit ahead of the biggest game of the season.

“We’re better defensively than we were when we played Mississippi,” Kelly said. “We’re still a work in progress, but we’re getting better. We’ve made steady progress. Our practice today on defense was night and day against Missouri on a Thursday, so that’s preparation. We have to perform, we have to tackle, play the ball in the air, execute together, but we’re definitely making the progress I wanted to see with my own eyes.”

Against Alabama, the pass rush will take center stage. On paper, this is the perfect situation for LSU’s defensive line to thrive as Alabama is in the bottom 10 teams in the country in sacks allowed per game. Saivion Jones, Maason Smith, Bradyn Swinson and others looking to get in the backfield to unsettle quarterback Jalen Milroe, but it won’t be as easy as the numbers may indicate. 

Even if the defensive line comes ready, it’s still a team effort in the back end to force him to hold the ball, Kelly says.

“Numbers are a bit misleading,” Kelly said. “Some of those sacks were early on and a number of the sacks were about indecision at the quarterback position. They had three quarterbacks early in the year that were holding onto the football. We were hoping that this is an offensive line that was just giving up sacks left and right, but that’s not the case. There was a lot of indecision at the quarterback position. They’ve given up some sacks, but it’s not a leaky offensive line. This is a massive offensive line that’s skilled. We’re going to have to get pressure and being able to disrupt the quarterback is central to this.”

Throughout this season, LSU’s defensive line has racked up a respectable number of quarterback hurries or pressures, but the sack numbers remain low. The Tigers are tied for 95th in the country, averaging just 1.75 sacks per contest.

That number becomes even more important when considering the fact LSU has faced quarterbacks with similar builds to Milroe in Jaxson Dart or KJ Jefferson, struggling to bring both of them down. Still, Kelly has seen enough positives from the group to overlook the low sack total and explained how this unit can still be effective without racking up sacks.

“Compressing the pocket and knockdowns are just as important as sacks,” Kelly said. “Everybody loves the player coming off the edge and it makes for a great highlight, but when that pocket is compressed and you cant step up and have to throw the ball in a manner that youre uncomfortable with, or youre knocking down passes, those are really important and they’re equally important as any individual pass rush. We saw against our last few opponents a combination of all those things and we’ll look for those against Alabama.”

The addition of analyst Pete Jenkins has proven valuable in recent games, but with a potential spot in the SEC title game on the line, it’s now or never for this defensive line to make its presence felt.