LSU Football Freshman Receivers Impressing in Early Days of Fall Camp
The receiver room at LSU hardly ever is lacking in talent and this 2021 season is no different. What is a little bit different are the sheer number of freshmen receivers who the Tigers could wind up relying on in this offense under Jake Peetz and with Max Johnson behind center.
LSU welcomes four freshmen receivers to the 2021 roster in Brian Thomas, Malik Nabers, Chris Hilton and Deion Smith. All four bring different skill sets to this offense that could be of use to Max Johnson and company alongside Kayshon Boutte. Boutte himself praised this freshman class as coming in well ahead of the learning curve it took him and fellow standout Koy Moore to adjust to the college game during the 2020 offseason.
The one component that sticks out to Orgeron above all else, is that the moment has proven to not be too big for these newcomers.
"First of all, it's not too big for them," Orgeron said. "They're very capable of playing against the best guys on our team already, they've shown that. They've won some one on ones against some pretty good players. They're very humble and hungry and want to learn, they catch the ball well."
Most of the praise a week into fall camp has fallen on Thomas, the 6-foot-4 Walker High School product who waited until February to sign with the purple and gold. Alabama was right there until the very end in Thomas' recruitment but the chance to play right away and stay home was too attractive for the supremely talented Thomas.
He has the natural physical skills to be an immediate contributor in this offense and with the Tigers not set on a rotation, he's been one of the early standouts, hauling in three touchdowns during the early practice sessions of fall camp. Thomas surely can be seen as a redzone threat on the outside for the purple and gold
Smith was the only one of the four to enroll early with the program, but an injury in the spring left him limited in what he could do. Along with Hilton, Smith is considered to be one of the fastest receivers on the team already as both could wind up being vertical threats in the middle of the field.
"Brian is obviously the tallest and one of the strongest ones," Orgeron said. "Malik has great body control. Chris is just a great athlete. He caught a slant and he dunked it over the goal post and I thought he was gonna hurt his head, he's a 7'1" jumper. Deion is smooth, very smooth, he's long and you gotta throw in Jack Bech there that's a great group of guys."
It's unknown how many freshmen receivers will earn significant playing time as these are still the early days of fall camp. But all four are showing signs to the coaching staff that the rotation could be a but longer than initially expected.
"They're all gonna play for us and all gonna have great years," Orgeron said.
