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Tyron Johnson reached into a gym bag at the Under Armour All-American game in St. Petersburg, Fla. last week. He pulled out a white jersey with purple and gold accents bearing his last name and No. 3, the same No. 3 worn by former Tiger and budding NFL superstar Odell Beckham Jr.
Johnson is just another big-time player the Tigers have hauled in to catch passes. Going back to 2011, LSU has brought in eight four-star receivers and three five-stars, per 247sports’ industry composite rankings. That’s more than Alabama (nine four- and five-stars), which has had the top recruiting class in the country in each of those years, and more than Texas A&M (10), the pass-happiest offense in the SEC.
The best and brightest young receivers keep signing up to play for Les Miles, like Malachi Dupre last year and Johnson this year. But LSU’s passing offense rankings in the SEC since 2011? They’ve been 10th, 11th, sixth and all the way down to 14th this year.
The one year that jumped up to respectability, 2013, was the only year of the Zach Mettenberger-Cam Cameron partnership. Cameron’s downfield, Air Coryell offense took advantage of Mettenberger’s capabilities as a drop-back passer and the presence of two NFL talents out wide, Jarvis Landry and Beckham.
The top passers in the other three years were Jarrett Lee, Mettenberger in his first year out of junior college and Anthony Jennings this year. Not exactly a murderers’ row of quarterbacks, although Mettenberger did blossom into an NFL quarterback under Cameron.
So what’s the draw? To hear Johnson tell it, the school’s track record when it comes to producing NFL receivers is more than enough.
“I picked LSU because of…the history the program has of putting wide receivers in the NFL,” Johnson said at the Under Armour All-American game when announcing his decision. “Seeing all these guys that came from LSU be as successful as they are in the NFL is impressive.”
Johnson has the right of it. Since Miles took over the program, LSU has had 11 wide receivers drafted, including three in the first round. At this point, though, it’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. LSU recruits some of the best receivers in the country, most of them from Louisiana and the Southeast, because LSU is where the best receivers in the country go if they want to play in the NFL.
They’re not showing off their skills like they could be at other schools, though. LSU under Miles has been almost exclusively a run-first team, and in Miles’ 10 years his teams have only featured two 1,000-yard receivers: Beckham and Landry in 2013. Johnson hit on it at UAAA: many of the prospects the Tigers have sent to the NFL are still raw when they leave Baton Rouge.
Skill players like Johnson, Landry, Beckham and Dupre will keep coming to play for the Tigers on reputation alone. The track record of stud wide receivers at LSU is enough to draw in the recruits.
Now, if only Miles could find the right quarterback to unleash all that talent.
A former freelance journalist from Philadelphia, Brett has made the trek down to SEC country to cover the greatest conference in college football.
