Q & A: Derrius Guice Ben LovePublisher, TigerSportsDigest TSD's Ben Love goes one-on-one with talented LSU freshman running back Derrius Guice. On Sunday afternoon LSU held its annual football Media Day, which every year serves as the best - and sometimes only - time to interview Tiger freshmen. TSD's Ben Love caught up with promising first-year running back Derrius Guice, who shared his outlook on a number of topics as he is making the jump from local Catholic High School to the Bayou Bengals. --------------------------- Ben Love: Since you've gotten here, over the summer and now into Fall Camp, do you feel more comfortable? Derrius Guice: Yeah, I'm a lot more comfortable now since day one. The beginning of camp is mainly playbook, playbook, installs, installs. So I wasn't really comfortable at first because I didn't really know anything. Now we've been here two weeks, and I'm pretty comfortable with the playbook, my surroundings. It's just more fun and relaxing now. BL: A lot of people will say if you're a running back or maybe wide receiver, if you're athletic enough, you can just play. But it sounds like they really want to make sure you guys know what's going on out there. DG: That's one of the main things for our running backs. Frank Wilson wants us to know the concepts. We can call a play and know exactly what we do, but he also wants us to know what everybody else does so you can be more relaxed on the field and more comfortable in knowing what everybody does. We've got to know the linemen blocking schemes, the receiver route combinations. We've got to know a lot of stuff. On one play, if you don't know what the linemen are blocking, you can get the quarterback sacked if that's your protection. It can happen that quick. With the receivers, if you run the wrong route, you can run into the receiver because you don't know what they're running. There's just a lot we have to know. And learning the concepts is one of the main things I have to focus on as a freshman. BL: When you come to a place like LSU where coach Frank splits the carries in the games, in the season as a whole, what's your outlook on that as you compete for your spot in year one? DG: My outlook on that is seize the moment whenever the opportunity presents itself. So whenever you get the chance, you've got to always make the best of it and do what you've got to do. BL: How was that first scrimmage for you? DG: The first scrimmage was great. I feel a lot more comfortable with the plays and being aware of what's going on around me. It showed last night. We as a whole did really great. Leonard (Fournette) and Darrel (Williams) were patient. They had some tough, powerful runs. Me and Nick (fellow freshman Nicholas Brossette) had some again tough, powerful runs. We're still learning. We've still got a ways to go. It's only the beginning. BL: What about kick returns? Is that realistic for you? DG: It can be and it also cannot be. Whoever Coach (Les) Miles wants to be on kick returns, that's who's going to be on kick return. BL: Who's the fastest freshman on the team? DG: Donte Jackson BL: Are you close? DG: I'll say I'm pretty close. I'll say I'm pretty close. BL: You're the first guy in a while to come from Catholic High to LSU. You take some pride in that? DG: I take a lot of pride in that. Coach (Dale) Weiner did a great job with us, and I respect him a lot for that and Catholic High for making me a man and maturing me the way they did because it carried on here. You can tell that I came from Catholic High to here because of the way I present myself and act because you've got to remember you're not just representing yourself.
Best of Cameron, Steele at LSU Media Day Ben LovePublisher, TigerSportsDigest Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron and defensive boss Kevin Steele sound off on their respective sides of the ball heading into the Tigers' 2015 season. LSU coordinators Cam Cameron and Kevin Steele were made available to reporters Sunday during the program's annual Media Day. Here were the best, most interesting and most insightful comments from the Tigers' head men on each side of the football. OC CAM CAMERON On his quarterbacks in LSU's first scrimmage Saturday night ... "Based on last night I was most pleased with how comfortable they were, their body language. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but for a first scrimmage, it rivals the first scrimmage we had two years ago. That one was a pretty special one in most people's minds. So I thought last night was a huge plus." Did Brandon Harris take confidence from Anthony Jennings' time out this summer? "I think a lot of lights went on in the spring. When you can sit back and reflect on any season, especially a season that has some ups and downs, if you're the right kind of kid, the right kind of person, you're going to reflect, take it personal to a degree and let that help you grow." On his freedom play-calling now that QBs have more experience ... "Practice tells you that. And it's easier now to go to a young guy and say 'Okay, of these 15 things, give me the five you like the most, then give me the next five and we can do without the other five.' So of 15 things, you're not going to need all 15. When they're first coming into a system, they just have to learn. There's no way around it. You just have to give some things a chance and take some lumps in practice learning a scheme and ultimately it leads to something that helps us in a game. "Now it's just getting more feedback from them and helping them get into the right play against the right coverage with the right front ... This year, more than anything, I think you're going to see our quarterbacks with the ability to spread the ball to backs, tight ends, receivers and not so much driven in one direction in any particular game." Is this the year the tight ends are involved in the passing game? "I think so. I think Desean Smith was a big part of that (last season). He got banged up early in the season. Young players tend to not respond well when they get banged up and miss practice ... But Colin Jeter has made progress. Dillon (Gordon) brings a unique role to us as a true point anchor-blocker, which those guys are like a lost art today. We've got some guys who can do both. Jacory Washington got banged up in the spring, but then he caught a touchdown last night, ran right out of the stadium and nobody caught him." DC KEVIN STEELE His impressions of the defense he's inherited ... "I know this: this is a fast group of guys, a very fast group of guys. They're extremely competitive. You've just got to open the door to the cage. They'll go hunt. You don't have to get them all riled up and tell them some story. All you have to do is snap it and they'll go play. They play with great effort in everything they do and they're physical. When you've got that in this league, you've got a chance." On pressure being about more than just sacks in his system ... "Sacks are very valuable even in the National Football League, but affecting quarterbacks is even bigger than that. You may not get him on the ground, but if you affect him - get it out of his hand quick, give him something he's not used to seeing, change his vision, bat the ball - those things are just as important. Numbers can be skewed sometimes when you're just talking sacks." On linebacker Duke Riley getting extra snaps this August ... "First of all he is very, very football smart. He is a natural quarterback on the field. If you give him something, he can get them in the right play, the right check. It's easy to him in that regard. He plays comfortable. He gets himself lined up right and he knows what's coming. If you tell him when they're in this formation these are the two plays they've got, well, as soon as he sees that formation, he's telling everybody else. That comes to him naturally. "He's really fast, has a high motor and he's a really tough guy. You put that together, and even though he's a little undersized, it's okay because with everything else, that's a pretty good package." On if LSU will genuinely explore playing a 3-4 this season ... "We don't have 3-4 personnel. We just talked about the linebackers and we named five. Well, in a 3-4, there's four. That's not what this was built with and it's not what it was recruited to. Having said that, people are very fond of the Mustang package around here. That is a version of a 3-4. It's run schematically the same way as a 3-4. So you can line up in a 3-4 with six DBs on the field."
Hmm, very interesting. We don't have the people to run a 3-4 (most of us knew that) but we really like the 3-4. How in the blue hell is that going to work?
Situational football. LSU will be a base 4-3, that doesn't mean they can't run some 3-4. I'd also expect on rushing downs that some of the young DE's would fill in as a rush LB.
Needs to be a damn fine situation. No NG and weak/thin at LB, I'm not sure what situation would call for us to set up at a disadvantage
I posted the other day about a number of former Tigers working the NG position in the Pros. Bennie Logan, Ego, Kyle Williams, etc have all worked the position. We have used the Mustang package with a man head up on the center. They have already said that they will use a 3, 4 and at times a 5 man front. I also posted about being heavy at Safety, many teams use more and more DB's in game. As with anything down and distance comes into play.
He answered the question for you, read it again... "We don't have 3-4 personnel. We just talked about the linebackers and we named five. Well, in a 3-4, there's four. That's not what this was built with and it's not what it was recruited to. Having said that, people are very fond of the Mustang package around here. That is a version of a 3-4. It's run schematically the same way as a 3-4. So you can line up in a 3-4 with six DBs on the field."
My concern is if he is going to run it even though he just admitted he doesn't have the horses to do so. That's what it sounds like and that is just gonzo. I don't care how "fond" anyone is of it, you play within your capabilities
