re: Aside from Burrow and Daniels, who's the most dramatically improved player you can recall?

Jamarr Chase

Freshman year 23 recs and 300 yards with 3 TDs

Sophomore year 84 recs and 1800 yards with 20 TDs

Jose Vargas

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Al Woods... that's the guy

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By every measurable qualification a huge bust at LSU. Turned that into 40 million in career earnings in the NFL. Someone got that light to at least flicker.

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Brandon LaFell. Couldn't catch anything to becoming WR#1.

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First name to pop into my head.

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Who was a guy that was a DL at LSU and not overly impressive, but switched to OL in the league and had a long career?

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The LSU OL that I recall swapping sides are:
Dan Alexander (DL in college; OG w/ the Jets)
Eric Andolsek (DT to OG)
Stephen Peterman (DE to OG)
Carnell Stewart (DL to RT)
Lyle Hitt (DL to OG)
Joseph Barksdale (DL to RT to LT)

JJ2 is the only answer. Nobody had Jetts going from last dude on the team to top WR in NFL…

Clyde Edwards Helaire. That year with him and Nick Brossette at that point was the worst rushing year in terms of efficency since 2009. Between 2010 and 2017 we had Ridley, Hill, Fournette, and Guice. So having your leading RB average 4.3 ypc and the backup average 4.5, was pretty terrible to see. I mean statistically we still ran for a lot (173 per game), but that was because we were still a run heavy team. Our 4 yards per carry average put us at 91st in the country.

Then came 2019 and CEH. Dude looked like a different man. I just went back last week and watched his 2019 season and his NFL career. Elite agility, strength and power you wouldn't expect from that size, and elite hands out the backfield.

2018
146 car 658 (4.51 ypc) 7 TDs, 11 rec 96 yards

2019
215 car 1414 yards (6.58 ypc) 16 TDs, 55 rec 453 yards 1 TD

It came out or nowhere. My thought before the season was that I was 100% hoping John Emery was going to take that spot at some point in time during the season.

Jeremy Hill had a crazy jump as well as Fournette, but you expected a big jump with them from year one to year two. Nobody expected that from Helaire. That's why I love what Burrow said about him being a kid from Ohio that nobody but LSU wanted, Helaire a 3 star, Moss a 3 star, Jefferson a 2 star. They took that shite to heart. Burrow spoke on Helaire a lot.

There are better answers out there, but I’d like to add Duke Riley.
Dude seemed to be a permanent bench/special teamer, but became an All-SEC player his last year.

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Chase

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I knew this guy was going to be a problem his freshman year.

I can't remember who it was (a lower level non-sec team) but he made them just look stupid on like a 7 yard catch where he jukes the CB and then just jumps over/through the LB to score when he's already got no room to work because it was a quick out route. Somehow he managed to wiggle through it but he made it look so easy

Joe Addai