LSU Football Moving Joseph Evans to Center, Coach Ed Orgeron Talks Spring Practice

Multiple players already asserting themselves as leaders on the field

It's March which means that for LSU, spring football is right around the corner for the defending national champs. On Wednesday, coach Ed Orgeron joined Baton Rouge radio show "Off the Bench" to talk all things LSU football as the Tigers will officially hit the field for the first time in the 2020 season on Saturday

Spring ball is meant for tinkering with different positions and Orgeron dropped a few nuggets on one particular player that will be switching positions for the 2020 season.

One of the decisions Orgeron said the Tigers decide to make was move defensive lineman Joseph Evans to center. Evans, a 6-foot-2, 288-pound lineman, played both offensive and defensive line at a high level in high school and hopes it can be a smooth transition for the sophomore. Evans provides more depth to a center position that lost veteran leader Lloyd Cushenberry to the NFL draft.

"When we recruited him out of Haynesville, he was a very good two way player, he could explode out of his hips so we moved him to center," Orgeron said. "We have Chasen at center but Joe's right behind him and is going to compete with him."

Along with Evans, Chasen Hines and Anthony Bradford will be competing for snaps in the spring with Hines having the clear advantage after spending most of the 2019 season as a backup to Cushenberry.

The running back position is another one that's up in the air as the Tigers currently have three guys--John Emery, Tyrion Davis-Price and Chris Curry--competing for snaps. At the moment, Orgeron said he considers all three backs starters and will use the spring to see if any can separate themselves above the rest.

One of the elements of the offense the Tigers want to continue to do is throw the ball out of the backfield and Orgeron believes that's an area all three backs could improve on this spring.

"All three of those guys are a little bit different, we're going to play all three of them and we're excited about them," Orgeron said. "Chris Curry really showed me a lot about his tenacity and perseverance when he played against Oklahoma. He's becoming the running back we know he can be, Tyrion Davis is a force and John Emery has improved on the things he needed to work on. It'll be a great spring for those guys."

The new man leading that group, Kevin Faulk, was promoted to running backs coach just over a week ago and Orgeron gave his thoughts on the move and how Faulk has done in his new role.

"Homerun hire," Orgeron said. "From his first day, we have a list of guys we invited for junior day and he was 100% on his guys attending junior day. He'll do a tremendous job for us in recruiting, the team gave him a standing ovation when we named him running backs coach. It's great for the state of Louisiana, great for LSU. Kevin's a force."

LSU also wrapped up its "Fourth Quarter" program recently, a string of preliminary workouts that sets the table for what spring ball will look like. Orgeron said one of the biggest revelations that came out of that series of workouts was the emergence of different players from a leadership standpoint.

"Guys like Myles Brennan, Andre Anthony, JaCoby Stevens, Damone Clark, Tyler Shelvin is doing a fantastic job and then the offensive line because those guys have got to come together," Orgeron said. "Ja'Marr Chase is doing some leadership, he's looked fantastic out there. We've got a good group but we've got to have guys step up and continue to lead throughout the spring."