A great team has a defense that travels on the road. For LSU to have a high level defense in 2025, it will have to start with greater pressure coming from an experienced and athletically gifted group of pass rushers.
LSU knew going into last offseason that it was going to have to replace the majority of the production and snaps off the edge with guys like Bradyn Swinson, Sai’vion Jones, Paris Shand and Da’Shawn Womack all leaving the program. Infusing known production out of the Power 4 conferences was extremely important to getting that aggressive pass rush for Blake Baker’s defense in a much better place.
Out goes that group and in comes the trio of Patrick Payton, Jack Pyburn and Jimari Butler out of the transfer portal. Those three and returning sophomore Gabriel Reliford figure to see the bulk of the workload at defensive end and edge once the 2025 season begins at Clemson.
Those four combined for 19 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks in 2024. The groundwork was laid starting in the spring when there’s a strong argument to be made that no position group performed better over the course of those practices. The Tigers tried pretty much every pairing imaginable between that core group and now the fall camp will be about continuing to find out who pairs best together.
The spring event in particular is where those pass rushers really shined. Whether it was redzone, goal line, or more traditional 11v11 series, that group won the day hands down and did so in front of several hundred fans.
Reliford, Butler and Pyburn are all roughly in that 265 range while Payton is a little leaner at 255. In most scenarios, Payton is likely a standup pass rusher while the other three have some versatility where they could also put their hands in the dirt for greater pad level leverage.
How those snaps are dispersed early in the season will be very interesting to watch play out and likely will be determined over the next several weeks in fall camp. Pyburn has really impressed the coaching staff since arriving at the beginning of the year, from both an on-field standpoint and a leadership perspective. He’s one one of the 10 P.A.C.T. leaders on the team, with him and Bauer Sharp being the only two transfers who were asked.
Butler is a savvy vet with Big-10 experience at Nebraska the last two seasons. He’ll be a tough, relentless pass rusher with an extremely high motor, traits Pyburn also possesses. Payton has the most playmaking resume of the new pass rushers and there’s an argument to be made that no player on defense has taken the biggest year one to year two leap in the program than Reliford.
The sophomore was a “Freak of the Week” winner this summer for the work he’s put in this offseason, looking to carry over a very strong spring into more playing time this fall.
With those four as established contributors, all attention goes to Kevin Peoples in getting the most out of those players. We saw last year the growth of a player like Swinson in just one season under Peoples and if two or three of this year’s group can make similar jumps, LSU has a potentially lethal pass rush on its hands.
There are some younger options with talent on this roster, guys like redshirt freshman Kolaj Cobbins who has a ton of speed coming off the edge and showed a few flashes with the second team back in the spring. Cobbins has been working hard to put on weight early in his career so he’s not solely reliant on his speed. The 238 pounds is going to make it difficult to push through an offensive line consistently but the talent is there if he develops physically.
Barring injury, it’s hard to imagine huge roles for guys like Cobbins, Dylan Carpenter, CJ Jackson or Damien Shanklin this season. LSU was very intentional with the veterans that it brought in via the portal at those positions and the development of Reliford in his second offseason has been exactly what the Tigers have needed as a pass rush unit.
The edge rushers simply have to set the table for the rest of this defense to work. Baker’s vision is creating havoc at every single level and that starts with pressure up front and being able to rattle opposing quarterbacks and offenses. LSU did that at times last year and when it worked, it led to positive results.
Doing it week in and week out will be the next step that Peoples has to take this group too and taking on quarterbacks like Cade Klubnik, DJ Lagway and LaNorris Sellers in the first month of the season will test this new look pass rush like no other.