LSU Football: The Tigers’ offensive philosophy for 2021 is simple
By Zach Ragan
In 2019, LSU football‘s offense took the college sports world by storm.
Under the guidance of offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger and passing game coordinator Joe Brady, the Tigers averaged 48 points per game — the best scoring offense in the nation.
As a result of the record-breaking season, Brady received a job offer to be on Matt Rhule’s staff in Charlotte as the Carolina Panthers’ offensive coordinator.
Brady obviously accepted the offer. He was replaced at LSU by Scott Linehan –a former NFL head coach and offensive coordinator.
The departure of Brady, combined with an extreme loss of talent to the 2020 NFL Draft, meant the Tigers’ offense regressed a bit this past season.
LSU averaged 32 points per game (No. 39 in the nation) in 2020. Not bad, but not good enough when the defense is giving up 34 points per game.
LSU football is getting back to the Joe Brady offense
The experiment in 2020 with Linehan didn’t go as planned, so Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron decided to make a change.
LSU parted ways with Linehan after just one season, which freed up the passing game coordinator position. Ensminger decided to retire, which opened the offensive coordinator position, giving Orgeron a tremendous opportunity to revamp the Tigers’ offense.
And that’s exactly what he did.
Orgeron hired Jake Peetz and DJ Mangas away from the Panthers to lead LSU’s offense in 2021.
The assumption is that we’ll see the Tigers run the same offense we saw in 2019.
At least that’s what recruits are expecting.
2022 three-star wide receiver Decoldest Crawford, who is committed to LSU, told 247Sports this week that he’s excited about the Tigers’ offense with Peetz and Mangas in charge.
“They said that they want to sling the ball,” said Crawford.
The Tigers were fairly balanced in 2020 on offense, averaging 42 pass attempts per game and 36 rushes per game. That’s actually similar to the splits from 2019. The difference is that LSU averaged over 400 passing yards per game in 2019 and only 312 passing yards per game in 2020.
Next. Coach O calls Dave Aranda for advice. dark
I’d expect to see that passing yards per game average increase significantly in 2020 for LSU. The Tigers have some great young talent and they have play-callers in Peetz and Mangas that can utilize that talent.
It should be fun watching LSU “sling the ball” all over the field next fall.