As Princewill Umanmielen and Ty Benefield dominate preseason rankings, the LSU Tigers' reloaded defense looks to maintain its terrifying reputation under the program's new coaching era.
The LSU Tigers may be in the first year of the Lane Kiffin era, but are expected to be a good team from the moment they step on the field. They have the talent and coaching on both sides of the ball to compete right away.
Things will be a bit easier for the defense to adjust, as Blake Baker and most of the staff is the same. The only change is along the defensive line, and even there they probably got better.
Baker did lose some key pieces to the draft, like Mansoor Delane and Harold Perkins, but there are already players ready to fill those shoes.
CBS Sports' Brad Crawford recently posted a ranked list of the 26 "most-feared" defensive players in the nation, and two Tigers stars were included:
No. 23 - S Ty Benefield
Benefield has felt a little more overlooked in the class of elite transfer portal players that LSU is bringing in, but he's as established as defensive talents get in college football. Similar to Delane and AJ Haulcy, he hopes to ride the Tigers to an early draft pick.
The 20-year-old has played a lot of football since his freshman year with the Boise State Broncos. He has logged 235 tackles with 18 for a loss, three sacks, five interceptions and 12 passes broken up. Pro Football Focus has him with over 2,100 defensive snaps played.
It'll be fun to see how Baker deploys Benefield, as he can do a little bit of everything on the field and has done it plenty of times. With how talented the LSU secondary is, there aren't many holes, but Benefield can be used to plug whichever ones pop up.
No. 4 - EDGE Princewill Umanmielen
While the Tigers had a dominant defense last year, they didn't have much of a pass rush. Perkins led the defense with four sacks. No true EDGE defenders had more than two. They will have hoped to fix that issue with Umanmielen.
Last year, for the Ole Miss Rebels, Umanmielen broke out nine sacks and 13 tackles for a loss. It was his first year of production, so there's a bit of risk that it could be a flash in the pan, but there is confidence that he will be able to do it again in Baton Rouge. He was the top EDGE defender in the portal for a reason. His 51 pressures forced last season speak for themselves.