By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
There is not much good to the loss of LSU behemoth tight end Trey’Dez Green to a knee injury for a few more weeks this season.
But LSU coach Lane Kiffin explained on his weekly radio show Thursday night that he has noticed something.
“With Trey’Dez being out, obviously that was bad in a lot of ways,” Kiffin said of Green, who injured his knee in the fourth quarter of the 32-24 loss at Ole Miss on Sept. 19 and has not played since. Yet Green (6-foot-7, 237 pounds) is still third on the team in receiving yards with 222 on 14 catches and a touchdown.
But it forced LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt to spread his field of vision to other receivers.
“Sam was so focused on Trey’Dez, because he’s such a big target and was catching everything and making so many first downs,” Kiffin said as he prepares his No. 10 Tigers (4-1, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) to play at No. 25 Kentucky (4-1, 2-1 SEC) on Saturday (6 p.m., ESPN).
“With the injury, Sam has to play with everybody else and not just focus as much as he was on Trey’Dez,” Kiffin said. “So, that’s helped in other areas. I always say there are good parts to bad things at times.”
In Green’s absence, redshirt junior wide receiver transfer Jackson Harris, formerly of Hawaii, has caught 10 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns in LSU’s first two games without Green – Texas A&M two weeks ago and McNeese State last week. Harris is now second on the team in receiving yards with 317 on 15 catches and leads the Tigers with a 21.1-yard average per catch. In the first game without Green, Harris caught six passes for 163 yards in the 35-6 win over Texas A&M on Sept. 26 with a 57-yard touchdown and a 16-yard score.
Sophomore Ole Miss transfer Winnie Watkins Jr. leads LSU with 23 catches and with 354 yards and has two touchdowns and a 15.4-yard average per catch. Watkins caught five passes for 107 yards against A&M. But when he dropped two passes against McNeese State last week, true freshman Corey Barber made his mark with seven catches for 83 yards and two touchdowns.
“Corey did a great job,” Kiffin said. “The receivers are playing with a lot of confidence. That wasn’t the case necessarily earlier in the season. So, I feel a lot more confident in our passing game.”
Leavitt has also made something good out of something bad – the minor hamstring tweak he suffered against Texas A&M that forced him to stay in the pocket to protect the injury and not scramble.
“With the Sam injury and him staying the pocket more, one of the things that happens is receivers get more targets,” Kiffin said. “That allows them to play in more rhythm.”
Leavitt is LSU’s second leading rusher with 220 yards onf 45 carries, but he has not scrambled or had a designed run since early in the Texas A&M game.
“If you scramble a lot, that’s less pass attempts,” Kiffin said.
Leavitt is planning on a combination of passing and scrambling at Kentucky Saturday now that his hamstring is nearing 100 percent.
And that may be bad news for Kentucky, which is 104th in the nation and 13th of 16 SEC teams in pass defense with 232 yards allowed a game.
“Now, I’ve got to play quarterback first and (running) playmaker second,” Leavitt said. “Use my legs when it has to happen, rather than forcing it. And that’s when I think it can be even more lethal. I view it as one complete aspect of the game.”
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