Redshirts step up

Freshman linebackers fill void left by injury

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter

http://www.2theadvocate.com/sports/101357414.html

Panic had an easy path in and every right to be rampant last week within the LSU football program and on the fringes.

Losing a starter — any starter — to an injury as serious as a broken bone is fair cause for alarm.

Especially if said starter is at a position that, at least on the surface, seems to be thin and is without question an area of inexperience.

So when hard-hitting junior weakside linebacker Ryan Baker was knocked out last week with a broken jaw, panic had a perfect chance to take center stage.

Instead, two members of the unproven linebacking corps stepped into the void and have supplanted dread with optimism.

Redshirt freshmen Kevin Minter and Lamin Barrow are filling in while Baker heals — which could be another 2-to-4 weeks — and have also given LSU more apparent depth in the middle of the defense.

Before Baker’s injury in a light-contact drill, he and Stefoin Francois were slated to be the new starters flanking fifth-year senior Kelvin Sheppard in the middle. After those two, a batch of redshirt and true freshmen were being counted on to supply the depth.