3. Michael Divinity Jr. shifting inside
Michael Divinity Jr. has been an impressive player for LSU for a couple of years now, and he spent last season in the Tigers’s F-linebacker role on the outside. He still worked there some this spring, but he also spent a good chunk of the practices on the inside as LSU looks to find the right combination to replace the departed Devin White.
Divinity has the versatility to play inside-or-outside, and that versatility only underscores further how many talented athletes LSU boasts on defense that could fill a number of roles.
With Divinity making the move inside, JaCoby Stevens shifted to his F-linebacker role after spending last season as a safety. Stevens’s ability to play physical in the box or drop back against the pass is appealing, increasingly so in today’s college football landscape when so many teams run spread offenses and try to throw the ball down the field.
Now, this move could have been more to do with Jacob Phillips‘s injury and him spending most of the spring in a gold non-contact jersey.
LSU has a lot of options, though, and Orgeron and defensive coordinator Dave Aranda will hope to find the right combination that puts the best players on the field on defense. Patrick Queen also has the ability to play inside or outside, so we could end up seeing some sort of combination of Divinity/Phillips/Queen/Stevens in the four linebacker spots.
Even after losing White, there aren’t many linebacker corps that can boast more talent than that.