By KACE KIESCHNICK, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
In LSU’s 35-6 routing of Texas A&M, Blake Baker’s defense did something it had never accomplished before – shut down Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed. Reed finished the game with -13 rushing yards on 10 attempts and was 10-of-26 for 106 passing yards and an interception.
Safety Ty Benefield was a major contributor to the Tigers’ success as he took over the STAR role for an injured Dashawn Spears. In his first game as the STAR, Benefield led LSU with seven total tackles, all of which came in the first half, and nearly doubled the 10 he had on the season entering the game. Coach Lane Kiffin said that physical tackling ability was the exact reason the coaching staff made the decision to make Benefield the STAR.
“Those perimeter runs and quarterback runs,” Kiffin said. “That’s a really great tackler right there, and rerouting perimeter plays and stuff.”
Linebacker CJ Jimcoily has been the backup STAR all season, and it was Tamarcus Cooley, the other starting safety next to Benefield, that rotated down to the STAR against Ole Miss. But instead of relying on one of them against the Aggies, the Boise State transfer took over.
“I think they think I’m just a good athlete and can tackle, and they see things in me like running to the ball and being able to set edges and stuff,” Benefield said of the coaches’ decision. “And me and Dashawn are very similar body-wise and play style. We’re out there playing fast, so I think they just saw that in me for real.”
Benefield is listed as 6-foot-3, 216 pounds while Spears is 6-3, 209 pounds. That length and physicality is necessary for the STAR that fills gaps as an extra linebacker, defensive back and even edge rusher at times. After Spears went down against Ole Miss, Kiffin said he would be hard to replace.
“Spears is just really unique,” Kiffin said in his press conference after the Ole Miss game. “He’s one of those guys who you just don’t find – his length, his coverage ability. He can play run, but cover in man-to-man. He lets us play a lot of unique defenses. He really was an integral part of how well we played on defense.”
But Benefield carried on without much of a hiccup as the LSU defense returned to its “suffocating” form as Kiffin described it after the game. LSU held the Aggies to just 197 total yards of offense, racked up four sacks and seven tackles for loss and forced two interceptions.
After three games, the Tigers had the No. 1 rushing defense in the nation, allowing just 33 yards on the ground per game. The run defense was again impressive against Texas A&M as the Aggies averaged just 2.8 yards per carry and netted 91 rushing yards. Benefield was an active participant in run support in his new position. Five of his seven tackles came against the run, meaning he helped bring down the ball carrier on nearly a third of the Aggies’ 18 runs in the first half.
“That is the top of any defense is stopping the run,” Benefield said. “You stop the run, now they got to pass the ball, and you stop the pass. What they gonna do now? So, take pride in stopping the run and run fits, corners take pride in being in run fits, safeties, all that, so that was shown today.”
Reigning in the A&M rushing attack is certainly made easier for the Tigers when they do not have to worry about Reed accounting for 108 yards on the ground himself like he did last season. Baker can sleep easy knowing he no longer has to worry about recurring nightmares of Reed tearing up his unit in Tiger Stadium. He can instead replace that haunting memory and the pictures of his five trips to the end zone over the last two years with visions of the five times Tigers brought Reed down in the backfield.
Benefield said it was Reed’s turn to be haunted.
“He’s a really good quarterback, really good athlete,” Benefield said of Reed. “It just shows how when you do your job and the little things, you can see how small things just equal big things, and the D-line just doing their jobs, it just really helped in coverage. Because if you make somebody just go back there and see ghosts, in coverage that makes it a lot easier.”
But Benefield was tired of any more talk about painful memories or ghosts waiting to be avenged. He said this is a new team.
“We just heard a bunch about the past and the past and the past,” he said. “Heard all throughout the off season, guys from their team saying the past and stuff, and it’s funny because we’re not in the past, we’re in the present. So, we showed up and showed out and did our jobs.”
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