By KACE KIESCHNICK, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
The wide receiver room was one of the widest unknowns for LSU this off-season.
LSU (1-0) welcomed 12 newcomers (nine transfers and three freshmen) to join redshirt freshman returnee Phillip Wright III in the receiver room. The talent Lane Kiffin added to the roster was obvious, but questions remained as to who would emerge as the offense’s top targets, and whether the room had the elite talent to produce the alpha receiver for which LSU has become known.
Former Ole Miss transfer wide receiver Winston Watkins Jr. answered some of those questions against Clemson on Saturday.
The sophomore from Fort Myers, Florida, led the Tigers with seven receptions for 110 yards and a touchdown in LSU’s 51-10 win. He caught a 32-yard touchdown from quarterback Sam Leavitt and had catches of 20 and 22 yards for a 15-yard average and added a reverse rush of 14 yards.
But unlike his explosive plays, Watkins’ electric debut was not done in a flash. It was the product of months of preparation, not just by him, but the entire LSU roster.
“Going into the game, I was very confident in our guys,” Watkins said after practice on Tuesday. “I felt like everybody out there was going to do their job, and we were going to handle what we had to handle. And then we showcased that.”
There could, and likely should, have been growing pains for an offense that relied on eight new starters. But there were very few.
Leavitt, a redshirt junior from Arizona State, took the lead at quarterback after missing months of off-season work recovering from foot surgery. An upstart redshirt sophomore transfer running back in Dilin Jones from Wisconsin usurped two top returning rushers.
Watkins joined Florida transfer Eugene Wilson III and Illinois transfer Malik Elzy as an all-new cast of starting receivers. Transfers Jordan Seaton and Aliou Bah filled in gaps at left tackle and right guard, and returnee Bo Bordelon made his second career start at left guard.
The eyes of the nation were on a roster that, despite being completely rebuilt by a first-year head coach, has received pressure to compete for a national championship this season. A lightning delay only added to the nervous anticipation, and a Leavitt interception on LSU’s second play seemingly vindicated any doubters.
LSU had every reason to fall flat. Instead, it went on to score 51 unanswered points in one of the most memorable season openers in Tiger Stadium history.
Watkins said that was because Kiffin and Co. prepare their team better than any other coaching staff in the country.
“When we go into the game, he makes sure that we know every answer to every question on the test, so when we get into the game time, now it’s time to have fun because we already prepared all these weeks and all this time and all these walk-throughs and all these meetings to go out there and have our fun and showcase our talents,” Watkins said. “Now we get to play basketball (dunking on a goal on the sidelines after TDs). Now we get to do the fire extinguisher thing, and now it looks good. But we’re putting it all together with our preparation.”
Adding to the multitude of reasons the Tigers should not have dominated the way they did was the fact that anything on the field was overshadowed by off-field controversies the week leading up to Kiffin’s LSU debut. Headlines were hijacked by lawsuits and court rulings while those outside of the facility were left to wonder how the team could possibly handle the distractions.
Watkins, though, said many parts of his life have taken a backseat to football. Whether they are eligibility controversies or video games, distractions are secondary to his pursuit of greatness.
“I don’t pay attention to it because I love football that much,” he said. “I want to be able to leave an impact in football and show that I’m one of the best that’s ever done it.”
The detailed preparation of Watkins and the LSU offense has been enhanced by their competition. He said that playing games against the likes of Georgia, Oklahoma and Miami while at Ole Miss last season has helped him recognize great defenses, and LSU’s defense is truly elite.
“We got guys all over the place on defense that’s going to help us go wherever we need to go at the end of the season,” Watkins said. “If we struggled to practice in fall camp, I really didn’t take it as struggling. I took it as we’re competing with one of the best defenses.”
That defense proved his theory on Saturday. The “Bayou Bandits” held Clemson to just 145 yards and eight first downs. The Clemson offense did not pass the 50-yard line until its final drive when it also produced its only touchdown against primarily LSU backups. It was the only dive of Clemson’s 13 possessions to last for more than five plays as the Tigers went 1-of-13 on third down conversions. Clemson took its 3-0 lead in the first quarter on a 49-yard field goal after starting at LSU’s 33-yard line following Leavitt’s interception.
Meanwhile, whatever struggles the LSU offense may have had against that stout LSU defense in August were forgotten. The Tigers totaled 644 yards and a program-record 38 first downs. LSU passed for 335 yards and ran for 309 while Leavitt completed 16 of 28 for 230 yards, one touchdown. Watkins said it’s just the beginning for the LSU passing attack.
“We just got to keep jelling together and getting the timing together and keep working with Sam, because at the end of the day when you have that relationship with your quarterback to the receivers, it’s always going to keep getting better and better,” he said. “That was our first game. We played a really good game, but at the end of the day, we had so much more room to grow. We left a lot of meat on the bone out there.”
Next up for the Tigers is Louisiana Tech (1-0) of the Sun Belt Conference on Saturday in Tiger Stadium (6:30 p.m., SEC Network+ and ESPN+). The Bulldogs fall between Clemson and a return trip to Ole Miss for Kiffin and Watkins and other transfers at LSU from Ole Miss – edge Princewill Umanmeilen, linebacker TJ Dottery and offensive guard Devin Harper.
“We’re not even worried about Ole Miss right now,” Watkins said. “We’re only focused on Louisiana Tech right now. We take every day one step at a time and just go 1-0 every day. We had a very good practice today. I feel like everybody’s locked in, focused.”
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