Nobody’s talking about the Ohio State DBs we got in the portal last year

We seem to have done well with Ohio State transfers.

If Sage is starting anywhere, there's a problem. No disrespect intended, that's just a fact until proven otherwise.

They’ve given fans nothing to talk about, Carl

Sage has been playing out of position his entire career at LSU. He’s not a corner, he’s being forced to play corner because we need him to

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If Sage is starting anywhere, there's a problem. No disrespect intended, that's just a fact until proven otherwise.

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#Facts

I was excited about Sage Ryan. I thought he had the makings of an elite DB. Even if he didn't settle neatly into either corner or safety, I figured worst case, he would be a lights-out nickel.

He has not developed as I expected, although I do not question his effort. And, he has played well at times, just not consistently. Maybe the light comes on for him. We will have to see it before we believe it.

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If Sage is starting anywhere, there's a problem

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I’ve heard absolutely nothing about either of them the whole month of August practice.

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How much have you heard about Toviano? He started 3 games for us last year & it seems to me that both of these guys are ahead of him now.

Sure, he’s had off the field issues, but he’s been a full participant in training camp.

I’d expect to see 12 & 17 playing in Game 1 against USC. Sounds like an upgrade from last year to me.

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I was excited about Sage Ryan. I thought he had the makings of an elite DB. Even if he didn't settle neatly into either corner or safety, I figured worst case, he would be a lights-out nickel.

He has not developed as I expected, although I do not question his effort. And, he has played well at times, just not consistently. Maybe the light comes on for him. We will have to see it before we believe it.

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I’m not sure he hasn’t developed as much as he’s just kind of a tweener who is a victim of ridiculously high expectations due to being overrated coming out of high school. Doesn’t have the hips to play corner and too short to play safety. I mean, he can play there, he just won’t ever be an All SEC kinda player. And I think they eventually want somebody to take that 2nd CB job from him so he can move back to nickel or safety, where he’s probably a much better fit.

I am gonna give him a bit of a pass on last year, though. House was so, so, so bad. He may have a fantastic scheme, but he didn’t have the personnel to run it and didn’t adjust. So we had guys thinking way too much, which made them play slow. I try to preach to my kids that it’s better to do the wrong thing at 100% than the “right” thing at anything less. If you’re not sure what to do, do fricking something with full commitment and you might frick around and make a play. Or disrupt it enough for somebody else to.

But if you just stand there in no man’s land, not sure whether to come up and take the guy in the flat/play the run, or run with the guy on the outside—whatever—the ball will inevitably find and embarrass you. And we just had too many guys doing that last year, just standing there all confused, playing slow, for it not to be a coaching issue. And they lost confidence early and got just too far gone to rein it in. Not making plays on balls they were in position to, not making tackles, turning a 25-yard busted coverage catch into a 40-50 yard play because they couldn’t get guys to the ground.

Not gonna try to sugar coat it and say our guys are great and it was 100% on House. But they’re better than they played last year. Hopefully Baker can play to their strengths and put them in positions that allow them to play free-er and faster and with a fricking bit of that LSU defensive swagger that we’ve lacked for years. We’ll start to see Sunday.

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otherwise

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Aka spring and fall camps.

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How much have you heard about Toviano?

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I was just about to mention him. I have to think they planned on him playing a lot this year.

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He started 3 games for us last year & it seems to me that both of these guys are ahead of him now.

Sure, he’s had off the field issues, but he’s been a full participant in training camp.

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I’ve got to think his off the field issues are a factor somehow. Either he’s facing some internal discipline (not a full suspension) or they’re not sure they can count on him, whether they’re scared he might screw up again or there may be a possibility something can change with his situation and charges might be filed again—I’m not suggesting either is true at all, just positing potential reasons for his lack of 1st team run.

Or maybe he’s kind of a tweener too, and they don’t know where he can best help the team. I think Baker, Olsen, and Raymond are gonna do a lot of tinkering early in the season, moving guys around, playing different positions, playing different guys together (maybe the 2 best individual safeties don’t play as well together as another combo for example) until they figure out how to best put the puzzle pieces together to where the sum might be greater than the whole of its parts.

The DBs have to play together as 1 unit, have to be able to communicate from across the field, to not only know what they individually have to do, but know what the others have to do and trust that they’ll do it. And it may take a bit to figure out what group does that the best. That’s why this USC game is so fricking huge. If we can just escape with an ugly 1-point win, the schedule sets up nicely for them to figure all that out before Ole Miss comes to Baton Rouge in Week 7 after a bye.