Five LSU football impact sophomores for 2016

LSU football featured several key contributions from freshmen last season, but which rising sophomores will have the biggest impact in 2016?

It’s no secret that LSU football coach Les Miles is not afraid to play freshmen in key roles each season, either by necessity based on upperclassmen attrition or because of an incoming freshman’s sheer talent.

The number of freshmen Miles has chosen to insert into prominent roles on LSU’s football team has steadily increased the past three seasons.

LSU football had a total of 18 players drafted in the 2013 and 2014 NFL Drafts with collegiate eligibility remaining, including eventual first round picks Barkevious Mingo, Eric Reid and Odell Beckham Jr.

With so much recent early draft attrition, Miles has been forced to utilize youthful talent much earlier than expected.

From current senior cornerback Tre’Davious White, who as a freshman in 2013 played in all 13 games with 11 starts and led the Tigers with seven pass break-ups, to Leonard Fournette breaking the LSU freshmen rushing record with 1,034 yards in 2014 to the bevy of freshmen studs that littered both sides of the ball for the Tigers last season, youthful talent had profoundly impacted LSU in recent years.

2015 LSU Impact Freshmen from LSU Football on Vimeo.

For Miles and LSU, the best result of playing so much youthful talent is eventually most of those talented freshmen mature into older, wiser and (hopefully) more talented upperclassmen.

Though still a year from reaching upperclassman status, these five rising sophomores could have a major impact on the LSU football team’s success in 2016.

Next: No. 5 Tyron Johnson