Q&A: Will Campbell on LSU's O-Line struggles, growth of young players

LSU’s star offensive tackle Will Campbell has been a vocal leader and one of the best players on the team in 2024 as a junior. Now, as the Tigers face three straight losses, Campbell looks to help get his team back on track this weekend against Vanderbilt to stop the skid in Tiger Stadium.

Here’s everything Campbell said at his media availability and his thoughts on all of the struggles LSU has faced this year.

On preparing for Vanderbilt… 

“Vanderbilt is a good team and they’ve been in every game they’ve played, so at the end of the day it’s about us sticking to our process, sticking to what we’re coached to do. At the end of the day, you’re not going to win every rep, but you have to fight every rep. When you make a mistake, most of them are self-inflicted, whether it’s hand placement or something else, you just have to attack it during your preparation to prepare for another quality opponent.”

On LSU’s morale…

“Nobody in this building wants to lose. Everybody wants to win as much as anybody in the entire country, so at the end of the day, this is not what we worked so hard for, but hard work is the standard. It’s what we do and we have a great opportunity against a quality opponent to get a stain off of us that’s been on us for the past five weeks. It’s on us as the players to get the job done.”

On the impact of Garrett Dellinger’s injury…

“I’ve been here for three years and I’ve played with Garrett since I got on campus and you build a bond with him, but it’s even deeper. When you take reps next to somebody it becomes muscle memory, so whenever someone goes down, we have good players and it’s their job to be ready to go. Coach Davis coaches the No. 1 one guy to the bottom of the totem pole with the same intensity, so you have to be prepared mentally for the challenge and we have guys like that. When you’re starting in the SEC against Florida and it’s your first start, first reps coming off of surgery, it’s not going to be all roses and skittles, it’s going to have bumps and bruises to it. We all have a bond in that room, so everybody trusts each other. Everybody knows what to do and is on the same page and it’s on us to make it happen.”

On the Florida struggles…

“I’d say self-inflicted wounds put us there collectively as an offense. We had 13 negative plays as an offense and you don’t deserve to win an SEC game with that type of performance and that’s the bottom line. You go into a hostile environment against a good team, and Florida is a good team, the SEC is the NFL of college football. These dudes will play on Sunday just like guys here will. You have to have that drive to go win and when you have mistakes on the road against a good football team you don’t deserve to win that football game.”

On young guys playing on the inside of LSU’s OL…

“We’ve been in their shoes. Everybody sees me play, but if you get the time, go watch my first play of college football. I got my face ran through. Punished. That’s just what it is. To be thrown in the fire like this against good teams, these dudes are trying to get paid on the other side and they just have to get through one time. If a D-Lineman gets one sack a game for 12 games, he’ll be a top five pick. If an offensive lineman gives up one sack a game for 12 games, you’re going to work at Amazon. Everyone here wants to play on Sundays and this will only make them better. They’re growing each week, they’re learning, not just physically but mentally. The game has slowed down so much for DJ and Paul and you can see it. Eventually they’ll get the rhythm of it. [Mubenga] is going to be a great player, he fights, and that’s all you can ask for. He’s a hard worker and I couldn’t be more proud of him because of how much he’s grown since he’s been here and he’s going to keep growing.”

On the outside noise…

“At the end of the day, none of that really matters. Nobody pays attention. No matter what anybody says, that ain’t changing us getting the job done on Saturdays. People can say what they want about the Florida game, but we’re trying to get ready for Vanderbilt. It’s just noise and being in a program like this where the standard is championships, when you don’t perform, it’s what you expect. It’s part of it and we know that.”

On LSU’s gold uniforms…

“They’re cool. I didn’t even know we had a yellow jersey, the last time I saw that was when Leonard Fournette was here with that mustard jersey. It’s just a jersey, we don’t buy into that. It looks good I think.”

What did you tell the team after the Florida loss…

“At the end of the day, it’s on us to go and handle things on the field. Nobody is out there with us. Nobody’s opinions of what we are or what we should do or who should be fired matter, we just have to go out and do it. We’re put in the right positions and we have to go out and execute. That’s what we expect ourselves to do and we’re working on that this week, tightening the screws and now we just need to play our style of football. Three out of the four losses we’ve had we led going into the fourth quarter. People who don’t pay attention, the twitter coaches don’t know that, but we do. Now, it’s about us finishing football games. It’s the final stretch, so we need to finish what we’ve been doing all game. It’s not the coaches, they put us in the right position to win, so we just need to go do it.”