LSU Football: Brian Kelly Provides an Update on Former 5-Star DL Dominick McKinley

The No. 1 player in Louisiana out of high school dealing with a nagging injury, halting immediate impact in Baton Rouge.

Brian Kelly and the LSU Tigers signed the No. 1 player in Louisiana after five-star defensive tackle Dominick McKinley put pen to paper in February.

The top-ranked prospect in the Bayou State elected to shutdown his recruitment and remain home after signing to play in Baton Rouge as a member of the 2024 Recruiting Class.

Now, after enrolling over the summer, the youngster is poised for a big-time career with the purple and gold.

But it's been a "slow" start thus far after many had hoped he'd be an immediate impact player.

As it currently stands, starting defensive tackle Jacobian Guillory is out for the season with a torn Achilles, thrusting in Gio Paez, Shone Washington, Ahmad Breaux and Jay'viar Suggs as the four players to keep tabs on inside.

Not to mention defensive lineman Paris Shand making the move to defensive tackle.

With five Tigers ahead of McKinley on the depth chart, the program is slowing working him into the mix.

The former five-star is dealing with a significant turf toe injury that has stunted his growth on the field over the last few weeks.

"He's had a bit of a setback with turf toe and it's been fairly significant. He's getting scarring down on that joint which is allowing him to do much more. He's on our demo squad right now and he's doing a nice job. He's a young man that we have an eye towards playing this year but we gotta get him healthy first," Kelly said. 

"There's a lot of things going on in your first year. He's playing college football, he's going to class and now he's dealing with an injury for the first time. His future is bright but it's gonna take a little bit longer to get him there," Kelly said. 

When looking ahead to the overall outlook of the LSU defensive tackle room, Kelly highlighted the elite-level coaching of position coach Bo Davis and the strides his group is taking.

"Gio's a veteran, even though he's here for the first time. Paris Shand is gonna take some snaps in there, he's a veteran and a leader for us. I think we could talk about a lot of different guys in there," Kelly said. "The most important thing is we got a great leader in Bo Davis and he's helping those guys really understand how important their role is. We've got some young guys that are gonna have to step up and play some meaningful snaps for us."

"There's a lot of guys that have to play, they don't have to play 30 snaps. We're talking 12-15 snaps a piece but be really effective and a combination of all those guys. I think Bo's done a really good job of making sure each one of them knows they're important and each snap has to be top notch."

Now, LSU will take the field for the first time since Guillory went down with a torn Achilles when the Tigers hit the field this weekend.

All eyes will be on the interior defensive line on Saturday when the Bayou Bengals take on LaNorris Sellers and the South Carolina Gamecocks at 11 a.m. CT on ABC.

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