BATON ROUGE — Devonta Lee is changing positions.
LSU head coach Ed Orgeron announced on Wednesday that the former Amite High standout Devonta Lee is moving from wide receiver to linebacker.
“He’s at linebacker right now,” Orgeron said during his press conference previewing spring football season inside the Lawton Room. “When we watched the state championship, Devonta was the best player on defense on that field. He was playing at receiver. He had been a good receiver, but we felt that he’d be more of a linebacker, like a Jacoby Stevens type of guy.”
Orgeron further stated that the idea actually came from Lee himself.
“Big and strong, fast and he wanted to move to defense so he talked to me about it so we moved him,” Orgeron said.
Lee appeared in 13 games as a true freshman in 2019 and hauled in two receptions for 27 yards.
That wasn’t the only position change that Orgeron revealed on Wednesday.
Marcel Brooks is being permanently moved from safety to inside linebacker.
“I think he’s doing fine, he’s got to learn the defense but he was playing outside linebacker in the 3-4 but was a little undersized,” Orgeron said. “We didn’t have any linebackers so we had no other choice but to move him to linebacker and I think he’s been phenomenal. He’s very fast and once he catches up to the scheme, I think he’s going to be a fantastic linebacker.”
Brooks appeared in 11 games last season and recorded 8 tackles and 1.5 sacks.
Out for Spring
LSU will have several players that will miss the spring season. Those include: left tackle Dare Rosenthal (who is out for personal reasons) while linebacker Soni Fonua, tight end Arik GIlbert, safety Todd Harris, and fullback-tight end Tory Carter all sidelined due to injuries.
Defensive end Neil Farrell Jr. and Elias Ricks will be also limited due to injuries, safety Maurice Hampton is not participating due to playing baseball full time in the spring, and defensive back Kary Vincent Jr. will most of spring due to running track.
Brennan is No. 1
Orgeron once again spoke highly of Myles Brennan who enters spring football as the team’s No. 1 quarterback and the player who will be replacing Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow.
“He’s competed at every rep, just like Joe did, to win every rep,” Orgeron said. “I’ve seen him in the office watching more film than he ever has. I expect Myles to explode. I’ve always believed in Myles. I believe he’s a championship quarterback.”
Brennan appeared in 10 games in 2019 completed 24-of-40 passes for 353 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception.
Quote of the Day
“I do believe it would be a fault to keep on talking about last year. We’ve got to turn the page. This is a new team. We do have a lot of good things that we can fall back on from last year. I think the culture that we built was fantastic. But we need to keep that standard up. We can fall back on some of those things, but I can’t expect this team to be last year’s team.” — LSU head coach Ed Orgeron on putting last year’s national championship behind them