1/26/26 5:50 am CT

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Good morning, Tiger Fans,

First, I want to send my best wishes to all of you who are dealing with the winter storm sweeping across the country. We’ve been fortunate here in South Louisiana, but I know many of you are facing power outages, busted pipes, and all the headaches that come with extreme cold. Stay safe, stay warm, and here’s hoping things return to normal for you as quickly as possible.

Without much news to get to today, we’ll keep chugging along with our position-by-position review of our way-too-early LSU football depth chart. So far, we’ve looked at every position on offense (QB, RB, WR, TE, OL) and declared whether it’s better or worse than it was at this time last year. Today, we move over to the defensive side of the ball, starting with the big men in the trenches.

WAY TOO EARLY LSU FOOTBALL DEPTH CHART – BETTER OR WORSE?

Part 6

Interior Defensive Line

• Dominick McKinley 6-6, 308, So
• Stephiylan Green 6-4, 290 | Clemson
• Malik Blocton 6-3, 300, Jr | Auburn
• Achilles Woods 6-3, 289, RsSo | S. Ala.
• Shone Washington 6-4, 295, RsSr
• Brandon Brown 6-1, 295, RsFr
• Lamar Brown 6-5, 291, Fr
• Richard Anderson 6-3, 360, Fr
• Deuce Geralds 6-1, 268, Fr

The Tigers lost their two most experienced defensive tackles, seniors Jacobian Guillory and Bernard Gooden. They also lost four interior defensive linemen to the portal, including Ahmad Breaux and Walter Mathis, who each logged a good number of snaps this past season. That’s a lot of production to replace.

LSU is fortunate to return former five-star Dominick McKinley. But aside from him, the only interior D-linemen back are Shone Washington and Brandon Brown, who combined for just 70 snaps last season. LSU also added three defensive tackles from the portal and signed three outstanding freshmen from the high school ranks.

The portal additions include Malik Blocton, Stephiylan Green, and Achilles Woods. Blocton spent two years at Auburn and started the final eight games of last season. Green comes to LSU from Clemson, where he started six games this past season and had his best outing in the season opener against LSU, recording a career-high six tackles. Both should push for starting roles. Woods, meanwhile, looks more like a depth and rotation piece, similar to the role he played this past season at South Alabama after redshirting in 2024.

LSU’s transfer haul at defensive tackle didn’t generate the same buzz as some other position groups, but its freshman class is as exciting as any in the country. In December, LSU signed Louisiana’s own Lamar Brown from University Lab, who is ranked as the No. 1 high school prospect in America regardless of position. Listed as an “athlete” by recruiting services, Brown could play almost anywhere along the offensive or defensive lines. LSU has him listed as a defensive end, but at 6-foot-5 and already 291 pounds, it’s easy to envision him working inside, which is why he’s included here.

Then there’s Richard Anderson from Edna Karr, the nation’s top-ranked defensive tackle, and Deuce Geralds, who racked up an astonishing 51 career sacks at Collins Hill High School, the most in Georgia high school football history. That’s elite talent, any way you slice it.

The success of LSU’s 2026 interior defensive line will largely hinge on how quickly those three freshmen come along, how impactful the portal additions prove to be, and whether McKinley takes the next step in his development.

Verdict: Too early to call.

There’s no doubt that new interior defensive line coach Sterling Lucas has a ton to work with, and not just young talent, but elite young talent. Still, with so much production gone and so many key pieces unproven, it’s hard to confidently label this group as “better” right now. Another unknown is Lucas himself, simply because we haven’t yet seen his work at LSU. That said, if he can get anything close to what Kyle Williams got out of this group last season in his lone year on staff, the Tigers’ interior defensive line should be just fine.

Turning to women’s basketball, today’s home game between No. 6 LSU and Florida will tip off an hour earlier due to the weather in Baton Rouge. The game is now set to tip off from the PMAC at 6 p.m. CT on the SEC Network. This will be the Tigers’ first home game since beating No. 4 Texas back on Jan. 11. Since then, the Tigers have extended their win streak to four games with strong performances against No. 16 Oklahoma and Texas A&M. Here’s hoping the Tigers can stay hot on this frozen wintry night. 

Now, let’s continue longing for the crack of the bat and the springing of spring with the continuation of our countdown to LSU baseball’s season-opener.  

LSU BASEBALL COUNTDOWN TO GAME DAY: 18 DAYS

For today’s countdown, we take a trip down memory lane to the final game of LSU’s 2023 National Championship — a dominating 18-4 beatdown of Florida that was befitting of the final act for one of the best LSU baseball teams of all time.

Unfazed by the 24-4 loss the night before or by the early 2-0 hole they found themselves in after the first inning, the Tigers put on a show, pounding out 18 runs on 24 hits, including at least one from every starter. The 24 hits were the program’s most ever in a CWS game, and four of them came from the program’s most decorated position player, Golden Spikes Award winner Dylan Crews.

On top of that, Thatcher Hurd threw a gem of a game, Brayden Jobert and Josh Pearson hit home runs, and Jordan Thompson broke out of his postseason slump. The only negative of the night came when Alex Milazzo went airborne to avoid a tag at home plate in the fourth inning and suffered a fractured shin. Still, even that led to a touching postgame moment when Paul Skenes carried Milazzo on his back to a celebratory dog pile after the final out. Check out the game’s highlights here.

From top to bottom, the whole game felt like one big celebration of a season that began with the highest of expectations and ended by exceeding them. If you think that’s an exaggeration, consider this. This 2023 Tiger team not only won the National Title by battling through a CWS losers’ bracket, but they also produced the Golden Spikes Award Winner, the SEC Player of the Year, the SEC Pitcher of the Year and then saw Paul Skenes and Crews go 1 and 2 in the 2023 Major League Draft.

Of course, LSU went on to win the national title again last year and will be looking for its third championship in four years when the season gets underway in just 18 days. Bring it on! 

That’s a wrap for today, but if you appreciate these daily doses of Tigers news and what goes into producing them, I humbly ask that you show it by supporting our user-based business model through our fundraiser.