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Transcript

LSU's New Look 2026 · JustIN Time

• 0:07
  Welcome back to another edition of the Justin Time podcast.
• 0:11
  I'm your host, Justin, and we've got Will with us today.
• 0:14
  My brother, year 2, year 2, we start to turn over the new leaf.
• 0:19
  Starting on Year 2. Year 2 and.
• 0:21
  Hopefully it goes better than sports wise.
• 0:24
  Couldn't go any better for the podcast.
• 0:27
  Hopefully it does better sports wise for us.
• 0:30
  You know, Speaking of that, we'll start today.
• 0:36
  The way we're going to do these shows now during the summer to
• 0:40
  give us some stuff to talk about is we're going to go through
• 0:43
  today. We're going to hit LSU main
• 0:45
  points, LSU football and what we know so far.
• 0:50
  We're going to hit the transfer portal with LSU baseball.
• 0:54
  Then moving forward, we're going to take each one of LSU's
• 0:57
  opponents and kind of breakdown what we know so far leading into
• 1:00
  it just this summer from the summer and spring ball
• 1:02
  standpoint. Go episode by episode.
• 1:06
  Next week's episode we'll do Clemson.
• 1:09
  For the Thursday episode, we'll do Magnes State.
• 1:13
  I think it was a Tech Louisiana. Tech.
• 1:17
  Lot tech then that that week and then, you know, going on and so
• 1:21
  forth and covering them that way.
• 1:24
  But you know we're going to start it off since it's baseball
• 1:27
  season finishing up and we're going to just talk about
• 1:30
  baseball. Yes, Sir, as as everybody knows
• 1:35
  by now, Steven Marlin has decided to come back.
• 1:38
  Monster is returning. That's what I headlined on
• 1:41
  Reddit 5 days ago. Yeah, you know, everybody could
• 1:45
  see that coming when he posted that sea scrub through that
• 1:48
  Michael Cobble, Jay Johnson interview and screenshot of Jay
• 1:52
  Johnson's face when Michael Cobbles said and Stephen Marlins
• 1:55
  gone and put it as his profile pic.
• 2:00
  Yeah, you know, but Will made a post on Reddit, so he wanted to
• 2:04
  read some of those comments. Yeah, so I just basically say I
• 2:07
  put it like in all caps and breaking, put breaking in all
• 2:10
  caps, the monsters return. So obviously this from five days
• 2:12
  ago, you know, I'm obviously it was from lsusports.net.
• 2:16
  I saw a post, I saw it on YouTube, it was like under the
• 2:19
  community post, it said Stephen Milo will return for a senior
• 2:23
  season at LSUI. Would say, you know, the most
• 2:25
  recent comment was from 15 hours ago ago Tigers.
• 2:28
  And you know, if when the 1st going back to the original post,
• 2:31
  you know, said somebody said, let's go, you know, greatest
• 2:34
  shortstop I've seen here. And I'm sure they paid him a
• 2:37
  bag. I told me, I imagine like it's
• 2:39
  the main thing that would have kept them here, rightfully so.
• 2:41
  Because listen, you and I, we've talked about this, you know, on
• 2:44
  back and forth about he was really the more fascinating case
• 2:48
  about who would potentially return to the team that I felt
• 2:51
  we we felt pretty comfortable about.
• 2:53
  You know, Curry, Curry, Ellen, Jake Brown are two, two guys
• 2:56
  that I feel like will be more expected to leave with their
• 3:00
  upside And obviously standing, you know, doesn't have any
• 3:03
  eligibility eligibility left. So that's a no brainer.
• 3:06
  But Steven was on that tweener and like, you know, but just so
• 3:10
  I was even with like his draft projectability slots, I was too
• 3:14
  a little surprised and pleasantly surprised how
• 3:17
  somebody said outstanding. And now he said, now Curio needs
• 3:20
  to come back for a junior year, Brown for a senior year.
• 3:22
  Like I said, I don't think neither one of those are likely,
• 3:25
  but. Yet you, but you look at it, you
• 3:26
  know, for Curio's case, if Curio doesn't go, he's a sophomore, he
• 3:31
  doesn't go in the first round, which he dropped down a lot.
• 3:37
  He was on that back end of the projective stuff.
• 3:40
  And we've seen it. Draft day columns and guys that
• 3:43
  are supposed to be taken later on end up going in the first
• 3:46
  round because they can. They hooked up a deal with these
• 3:49
  teams and they can get better, you know, get better pay.
• 3:55
  But you know, these high school kids, some of them might stay in
• 3:58
  the draft and they might push Curiel back.
• 4:01
  Yeah, just. Yeah, like, you know, obviously,
• 4:04
  you know, this career started off slow, relatively slow this
• 4:07
  past season. But really a lot of the guys
• 4:09
  like the they picked it up offensively.
• 4:11
  You know, we had talked about this at nauseam.
• 4:13
  You know, Jake Brown was the first half of the year.
• 4:15
  Was this really carrying this entire offensive unit.
• 4:17
  But until, you know, Kane and Beanie really stormed through at
• 4:21
  the end of down the stretch, which which he was why he was
• 4:24
  our offensive player of the year on the powerhouse pose.
• 4:27
  He overtook Jake Brown at the last second.
• 4:29
  Yeah, we know he hadn't seen. There you go.
• 4:33
  And you know, Curio alluded to this in an interview with Miss
• 4:37
  Kona. People didn't know he broke his
• 4:40
  ankle in November. Yeah, that's right.
• 4:42
  So he said he was trying to compensate for a lot of that and
• 4:45
  when he got towards the end of the season, when he started
• 4:47
  picking it up offensively, he felt more comfortable at the
• 4:52
  plate. That might play into it.
• 4:56
  Yeah, it makes sense. For making a decision or not,
• 4:59
  but, you know, losing those guys, we know for sure Jaden
• 5:04
  Newt, Trent Caraway, Maverick Rizzi's going to Ole Miss Daniel
• 5:09
  Harding is left, Ethan Klaus's energy transfer portal, you
• 5:14
  know, incoming transfers, though.
• 5:15
  I feel so much better about our situation.
• 5:18
  Me too. You know, we've got Bill Waters
• 5:25
  who's the number one consensus player in the portal, you know,
• 5:30
  coming from Ole Miss, Jason Walsh and outfielder for Tulane.
• 5:35
  First team all AAC selection led to Green Wave with a 327 batting
• 5:41
  average and 9 homers and 54 RBI's.
• 5:44
  You know, here's a huge get to me, you know, is Kate Curland
• 5:50
  from Florida. He's a fifth year senior and he
• 5:55
  I think he was he's that says he's a College World Series
• 5:58
  veteran. You know.
• 6:00
  Diego Vasquez picture from USCA Big 10 all freshman team
• 6:07
  selection who posted the 426 ERA 34 strikeouts in 31 and 2/3
• 6:13
  innings. Then we got another shortstop
• 6:16
  who's the top 50 national transfer hit three O 1 with 13
• 6:21
  home runs in Dawson Park from Texas Tech.
• 6:25
  And then we got the right-handed picture from in Landon hood from
• 6:29
  Gonzaga that had a 78 strikeouts and 54 and a third with a 2.4
• 6:35
  ADRA. You know, baseball team is
• 6:39
  looking up and you know, JD alluded to it feeling weird.
• 6:43
  You know, he was always on the other side of it where he was
• 6:46
  preparing for a game and trying to recruit these players too.
• 6:52
  And he kind of admitted that last year at point, he tried to
• 6:56
  replace guys like eat offensive, guys like Ethan Fry, Jared
• 7:00
  Jones, Danny Dickinson and. Yeah, that's when he was like
• 7:04
  that. Was people like that and he was
• 7:06
  looking and he all got overzealous with their offensive
• 7:10
  numbers. And yeah, this year he's looking
• 7:12
  more, he's got more time. He actually walked out of that
• 7:15
  interview with Michael Cobble to take a phone call from a
• 7:18
  potential recruit. Yeah.
• 7:21
  You know, and he came back and he was in a much better mood, I
• 7:24
  would say, too. Yeah, yeah.
• 7:26
  And The thing is like, you know, you you had brought up a real
• 7:29
  good point about just like, you know it.
• 7:31
  It's no secret that Jay prioritizes the offensive side
• 7:35
  of the ball jam. Like and really like, you know,
• 7:38
  you can build a roster how you want, especially a guy with his
• 7:40
  magnitude. I don't care.
• 7:42
  Listen, you can do what you want.
• 7:43
  It always say, well, baseball is so uniquely structured around
• 7:46
  defense. So like I would just say I
• 7:48
  always have the mound straight 1st and then just build from
• 7:51
  there. Obviously you need you need you
• 7:53
  need to score runs at the end of the day.
• 7:54
  So I'm not I'm not oblivious to that.
• 7:56
  But like I said, just, you know, we had talented guys or
• 8:01
  promising guys who came from other schools, but it just did
• 8:03
  not pan out that way. I was really just really Hanford
• 8:07
  the team this year. So, but you know, just really
• 8:10
  just one day. I love about the great thing
• 8:12
  about elite or high end coaches in any sport is just they're not
• 8:15
  so rigid about their approach. You know, they they, they, they
• 8:19
  quickly the chain, they see it like they don't, they don't get
• 8:22
  stuck in their ways too much and like they just radically shift
• 8:26
  to something else, even if it's not like immediately radical,
• 8:29
  but it's just you. You do not you're not going to
• 8:31
  stay in place. Exactly.
• 8:34
  Yeah, it's exactly what you just said.
• 8:37
  The best college, the elite college coaches aren't rigid in
• 8:41
  how they set up a team. They go with the ABS and flows,
• 8:44
  you know, two major coaches, two major coaching hires that
• 8:48
  happened is South Carolina hires Coastal Carolinas head baseball
• 8:54
  coach after fire in manary mid season.
• 8:59
  You know, then Chris Lemoyne, who's Mississippi State's only
• 9:05
  national championship winning head coach is who Coastal hired.
• 9:10
  You know, but you know, we're not going to get too much into
• 9:12
  it. We're looking forward to seeing.
• 9:15
  I think by tomorrow night we should know who's playing who in
• 9:19
  the World Series championship. Look, I'm happy with whoever
• 9:22
  goes. I think Georgia pitching wise
• 9:24
  might be one of the better. Is in the same situation as
• 9:27
  Oklahoma. Yeah, like I would say like, you
• 9:30
  know, going in to the tournament, you know, I wanted
• 9:33
  to see August. I'll pull it off, you know,
• 9:35
  because I know it's going to be a tough out for any SEC team
• 9:38
  because it's they're just that deep in the conference.
• 9:40
  But like at this point, like I mean, I really don't.
• 9:43
  I know my Co worker, he had no, I think it was I think you had
• 9:47
  the USA, Mississippi State and yeah.
• 9:50
  Yeah, I had Mississippi State going all the way.
• 9:52
  Right, right. And I and this part, I mean, I'm
• 9:55
  as long as the SEC I'm good. I'm just like just to continue
• 10:00
  that streak, you know, just with the.
• 10:02
  Change who is left in it if. The SEC.
• 10:05
  Can't pull it off this year. I would rather it be West
• 10:07
  Virginia. Yeah, it'd be a great story.
• 10:10
  Because, you know, we talked about them last year when we
• 10:12
  played the Super regional against them.
• 10:13
  There were just a couple of players away from couple of
• 10:18
  pitchers away from actually from being a competitor.
• 10:21
  Yeah, it it reminds me of just like, you know, they just it was
• 10:24
  like us in the late 80s. I mean, they just got worn down
• 10:28
  and they had they had a promising start, you know, they
• 10:30
  just but like, you know, when we read the book last year, not to
• 10:32
  go had rehash all that stuff, but just, you know, you know,
• 10:36
  like we just got worn down. Not to excuse the loss because
• 10:39
  the LSL and then the day, but just I I really like in their
• 10:43
  future and. And you know, I saw a TikTok
• 10:47
  this week, a couple weeks ago, you know, when the regional skin
• 10:51
  stuff came out and they were super regional as it was like
• 10:55
  two or three weeks ago, somebody said this is better than March
• 10:58
  Madness because you never know what's going to happen with the
• 11:02
  baseball regional. You had Little Rock and Troy
• 11:05
  competing to go to their first College World Series.
• 11:08
  Appearances, yeah. You know, was a chance to win it
• 11:13
  all. But Speaking of Troy, last
• 11:15
  night, after they lost, when they had their interview, when
• 11:18
  they got eliminated, their players took their media name
• 11:21
  tags off the thing. I like that.
• 11:25
  I love this, absolutely. I think when if I'm in time, I'm
• 11:30
  taking all that like I'm taking all that stuff because this
• 11:34
  ain't guaranteed. Yeah, nothing about this is
• 11:36
  guaranteed. No, but you know, we're going to
• 11:40
  get into football now. And just what we know so far.
• 11:46
  You know, you got Blake Baker staying as defensive
• 11:50
  coordinator. You know, you got Lane Kipman
• 11:52
  coming in, bringing in, you brought it almost his host,
• 11:55
  entire staff from office on the offensive side of the ball from
• 12:00
  Ole Miss. You know, Sam Levitt, we've got
• 12:04
  him. We dodged a bullet.
• 12:05
  And Brandon Soresby. We got that, man.
• 12:08
  Two really good backups in my opinion for Sam Levitt, you
• 12:14
  know. Yeah.
• 12:17
  We know that Kipman's offense is going to be really explosive and
• 12:22
  out there, and they like mobility, you know, they're
• 12:26
  going to put the ball in the air, you know?
• 12:29
  Yeah, and just like this, that's how it's upbeat style, you know,
• 12:33
  just I think it's definitely going to reinvigorate the
• 12:36
  offense because it was just it was such a tough watch last
• 12:38
  year, man. You know, like certain circles,
• 12:40
  it was a bad, bad watch last year.
• 12:44
  And what makes it and like was compound stuff like that.
• 12:47
  It's just you already have a strong unit on the other side of
• 12:50
  the ball. It was 1 to me.
• 12:51
  It's one thing if if both of you guys are struggling consistently
• 12:55
  because you're not helping each other out period.
• 12:57
  But when you have a strong unit, you just like, you don't have to
• 12:59
  be special, like you don't have to be decent and respectable
• 13:03
  enough. You could like all the turnovers
• 13:06
  inside the 10 yard. I'm like, bro, this is this is
• 13:09
  unbelievable. And you know, one of the main
• 13:11
  things that I think LSU has struggled with, and they
• 13:14
  struggled with it in 2019, too, but we just had such a explosive
• 13:18
  offense is the run game. We we've stuck with the run game
• 13:24
  for several years in a row, even 2023, just like these I think.
• 13:27
  We struggle with the run game since we got, since we lost
• 13:30
  Darius Dice and Leonard Fournet, we haven't got those dudes that
• 13:35
  can come and just put their head down and run people over.
• 13:38
  Yeah, and like it's a mixture of stuff, you know, like for team
• 13:41
  philosophy and like, and a lot of that plays a big role.
• 13:44
  I just like, you know, blocking scheme, coaching scheme, how
• 13:47
  they, how they tune up the guys. You know, The thing is just even
• 13:51
  with Jade, like Jade and Daniels mass so much of their
• 13:53
  deficiencies on the ground because he's mobile.
• 13:55
  So like they struggled since 2022 with the blocking all
• 14:00
  together they struggled. So it's just like, but you know,
• 14:03
  like the winning mass deficiency, the success mass,
• 14:06
  the deficiencies of the the scheme on the block, on the
• 14:09
  integrated. Yes, you you had Will Campbell.
• 14:12
  Yeah, like these guys, like these high profile blockers, but
• 14:15
  just even still is the word dominant like they used to be?
• 14:18
  Yeah. I mean, there weren't the just
• 14:21
  nose to the ground offensive line that were used to the wall,
• 14:26
  but you know, Harlan Berry's coming back and I think that's a
• 14:30
  great start. Lane Kiffin has had running
• 14:35
  backs in the past that, you know, I think our offensive
• 14:38
  scheme is going to be a lot better than Joe Sloan's dive
• 14:41
  down the middle. You know, I'm pretty sure if you
• 14:45
  looked in LSU's coaching booth, he had the PlayStation or Xbox
• 14:50
  controller in ATV and he was playing NCAA 26 to 25.
• 14:56
  He should be dive. He should be.
• 14:59
  Dive. He should be dive.
• 15:00
  He should be dive. I can't be my last part with the
• 15:03
  toss sweep toss dive. That's so funny, but.
• 15:07
  We get wide receivers like Eugene Wilson coming, you know,
• 15:14
  or he's here. I know he's a transfer.
• 15:17
  We got him. We got traded as green coming.
• 15:20
  Back. That's right.
• 15:22
  You know, we got Braylon Moore on offensive line.
• 15:25
  Big routine, yeah. Richard Anderson and Lamar Brown
• 15:29
  on defensive line, you know, linebackers, we've got a couple
• 15:33
  of you know, we're going to be good.
• 15:38
  You know, the thing that worries me is who was it that got hurt?
• 15:42
  Didn't we have one that towards ACL?
• 15:44
  Yeah, Gabe Reliford, just one of the two players.
• 15:47
  Like, we lost that. And that's the thing, one thing
• 15:49
  that makes me nervous about every season, every offseason,
• 15:54
  it's just like, it's so long and it's just.
• 15:56
  Yeah. And we've already lost two guy,
• 15:58
  at least two, unless I've missed one.
• 16:00
  I forgot the guy's name. No, we lost 2 because I
• 16:03
  remember, I don't remember his name.
• 16:05
  Yeah, there's, I know Reliford for sure.
• 16:07
  Yeah, but it's like Reliford, Aiden Andy.
• 16:11
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's because yeah, gay, gay
• 16:16
  like late March, he suffered Tories here late March and like
• 16:20
  2 weeks later, you know, and like mid-april 8 Nandy, I'm
• 16:24
  like, man, we didn't get to to the end of spring and lost those
• 16:28
  guys. It's tough.
• 16:29
  But that's why it's so important to have the death man is it's so
• 16:33
  paramount. You know, and on the recruiting
• 16:37
  side of the football knows his brother.
• 16:41
  Yeah. Was ruled ineligible for his
• 16:44
  senior year. But while he transferred
• 16:46
  schools, and I think he did it in parish or in county, like you
• 16:53
  went from one school in parish to another school or out of
• 16:57
  parish or out of county, whatever that rule is.
• 17:00
  I know it's one of those you know where if you go in, it's if
• 17:06
  you go because we were ineligible.
• 17:08
  That's why none of the freshmen could play on Catholics team.
• 17:11
  Yeah, because we were all coming from different school parishes.
• 17:14
  We had to sit out a year. We weren't eligible.
• 17:16
  So, you know. But let's see.
• 17:19
  LSU bar still just posted something that was 23 years ago.
• 17:22
  We got a four-star running back recruit for football.
• 17:27
  That's right. He was a top.
• 17:29
  Yeah, yeah. Top ten, Yeah.
• 17:31
  Top 10 recruit, yeah. Charles is over Trey and I'm a
• 17:37
  butcher. This last name?
• 17:38
  Segura, five, 10200 LB chose the Tigers over South Carolina,
• 17:45
  Tennessee and Stanford. You know, so we're looking good.
• 17:51
  We can get some offense. I thought we got a good handful
• 17:54
  of good offensive lineman. Yeah.
• 17:56
  Although I'm not going to lie, the Martinez kid from EA, when I
• 18:00
  watched him play is when he played at Dutchfound.
• 18:04
  Yeah, they got him as an offensive lineman, but to me
• 18:06
  they should move him to tight end and teach him how to catch
• 18:10
  the ball because when he get or moving the running back, he
• 18:12
  could be the next Leonard Fournette because he's big and
• 18:14
  as long as he can use his side and put his shoulder down, you
• 18:18
  know he was running over people. Well, that definitely listen, I
• 18:21
  mean, you know, it's funny because like you normally a lot
• 18:24
  of times you see like, you know, guys make the transition from
• 18:27
  Titan to defensive lineman because like just like the
• 18:31
  movement ability, you know, just like, you know, Titan is always
• 18:34
  a fascinating because it's like that tweener position anyway,
• 18:37
  the high ultimate hybrid spot. So like I'll be it should see
• 18:41
  what that if that's transition, they're going to look and
• 18:43
  they're going to consider. Yeah.
• 18:44
  Because you know, you got that tight end spot, that tight end
• 18:47
  spot, they could block, play the line and block or like we've
• 18:50
  used, I think it was best should we used a lot.
• 18:53
  We lined him up in the splits on outside, you know, so, but I'm
• 18:58
  really, I'm really interested to see quarterbacks, well, now that
• 19:01
  they're all healthy in that first fall camp, you know.
• 19:06
  Yep. I'm interested to see how that
• 19:10
  plays out. I feel confident in saying right
• 19:13
  now Levitt's will be Levitt will be our starting quarterback.
• 19:17
  Yeah, this is just like, you know, especially with his body
• 19:20
  resting up just I'm and, and, and granted, like, I mean,
• 19:23
  number one player in the, in the, in the portal, granted, so,
• 19:26
  you know, and somewhat obligation to do so, but just if
• 19:30
  you're not, if you're injured, you're injured, OK, hard.
• 19:33
  But you know, they, if they're comfortable, you know that's a
• 19:36
  great sign, as always. Yeah.
• 19:38
  You know, we'll know more about this coming season.
• 19:41
  Yeah, coming up, you know, just like we talked about, we're
• 19:44
  going to do each team's breakdown.
• 19:47
  Yeah, we'll know more about when we do cover Texas, Tennessee and
• 19:52
  Arkansas. Well, if I shout out to you, you
• 19:55
  know, putting that in the in the dock.
• 19:58
  When I put that in the dock, I knew you would.
• 19:59
  I knew you would find that one funny.
• 20:01
  Well, yeah, just you consistent brother.
• 20:04
  Yeah, but you know, we'll know more about those guys because
• 20:07
  it'll be closer to the opening day.
• 20:10
  Yeah. When we get there, right now, we
• 20:13
  don't know much about LSU, we don't know much about Clemson,
• 20:17
  but you know, we'll get there and as we know more, we'll tell
• 20:21
  y'all more. That's right, but.
• 20:24
  Any closing thoughts? You know, it's like I said, you
• 20:27
  know, this year or two, brother, I'm excited.
• 20:30
  Got to get back to the pickleball courts.
• 20:32
  Yes, we did. Yes, we'll see.
• 20:35
  Y'all want pickleball? Let us know if y'all meet us
• 20:37
  somewhere. Let us know.
• 20:38
  Yeah, we'll go. We'll go from there.
• 20:41
  Yep. And I'll get back.
• 20:42
  I'll get with you after we, Yeah, by next week, you know,
• 20:48
  but catch us every Tuesday and Thursday on YouTube, Spotify,
• 20:51
  wherever you get your podcasts. We're on Apple podcast.
• 20:55
  Let's try to get the subscriber and follow us for the Spotify up
• 20:59
  as well as the YouTube. Hopefully soon we can go do a
• 21:04
  live show one of these days. Hey.
• 21:08
  Yep, that's right. Till then, as always, like,
• 21:13
  comment, follow, share, subscribe, do the things we need
• 21:19
  to do to get this going and have a good day, a great night
• 21:25
  whenever you listen to it, great morning.
• 21:28
  Whatever you do, just make it a great one.
• 21:30
  Always. Signing off to the Just the Time
• 21:33
  podcast but season 3. We already cloned it brother.
• 21:37
  Peace, Peace.