LSU balancing potential, patience to 'put together a really good offensive line,' per Brian Kelly

LSU opened spring practice with a much different storyline up front on offense this year, as four veteran starters from the fall now prepare for the upcoming NFL Draft.

But coach Brian Kelly said he doesn’t look at the coming weeks as quite as sudden or wholesale of a transition and that he expects the Tigers to “put together a really good offensive line” in 2025 with a mixture of underrated returning experience and young talent.

“So, we lost them after the Oklahoma game is king of how we looked at it,” Kelly said Wednesday morning of tackles Will Campbell and Emery Jones Jr. and guards Garrett Dellinger and Miles Frazier. “And then we went to work against Baylor kind of developing a new group. And that’s where you saw Paul (Mubenga) start and you saw Tyree Adams start, so we feel like it wasn’t really four out of five — it was like trying to find a couple guys to fill in there.

“And I think (Virginia Tech transfer) Braelin (Moore) has done a nice job early on. Carius Curne, Solomon (Thomas), both of the freshmen have done a really nice job. Both of ’em are physically able. They’ve got to be able to step in in terms of learning the offense, but they’re gonna be really good SEC players.”

Kelly opened his first press conference of the spring by cautioning against trying to reading too much into a potential depth chart based on the opening days of preparation in March.

“We’re nowhere near, like, ‘This is the group that we’re rolling out for the opener against Clemson,'” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. This is spring training. This is the first lineup out there. We’re moving players in and out. It’s gonna be a new rotation on Friday. So you’ll get a chance to see a lot of different guys.”

Bowl game experience or not, that work-in-progress outlook appears to particularly be the case for the offensive line.

Redshirt sophomore center D.J. Chester is the lone returning starter from the bulk of last season, but Moore arrives from the Hokies with a season each of starting experience at both center and left guard.

The Tigers meanwhile await the arrival next week of Northwestern transfer Josh Thompson, who started this season at right guard for the Wildcats after doing so at right tackle in 2023

“They’re on quarters, so he’s finishing up his academics. He’ll be here next week,” Kelly said. “A good football player. Another addition to, as we talked about, a very talented transfer class that will bring Big Ten reps into our offensive line. A versatile player that can play guard or tackle, we haven’t decided where that will be. It will be kind of putting the pieces together to see how that fits. He’s smart, he’s physical and he brings us an experienced offensive lineman. So, he’ll be here next week.”

Adams and Mubenga, now a pair of redshirt sophomores, started at left tackle and guard, respectively, in that 44-31 Texas Bowl win against Baylor after both seeing action, including starting opportunities, during the regular season. Adams earned an early start against Nicholls State before an injury sidelined him for much of the rest of the season, while Mubenga was thrust into the lineup at the end of October when Dellinger went down with an injury.

And Bo Bordelon, now a redshirt junior, started at right guard in the bowl after seeing consistent, but limited snap counts throughout the regular season.

On Wednesday, Kelly also praised redshirt freshman Weston Davis, a 6-foot-6 former five-star prospect who saw minimal snaps in the fall, as “doing a nice job” early this offseason.

And the Tigers will continue to watch how quickly and smoothly Thomas and Curne can handle the transition to college, though Kelly made a point to temper expectations for a pair of freshmen would be ready to plug-and-play the way their predecessors were three years ago.

“The bar here is pretty high, right?” the coach said. “Everybody’s thinking, ‘Do you have Will Campbell and Emery Jones?’ I’d like to say that we have those every year, but that’s probably not the case. These are really good players that in time are gonna help us.”