Impressive as aspects of blowout defeats of Clemson and Louisiana Tech to start the season have been, LSU coaches and players will be the first to emphasize the team’s performance has been far from complete or perfect.
The defense has been undeniably “lights-out,” though, with the disruptive pressure up front — headlined by a historic early pace for edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen — among the Tigers’ strongest suits thus far entering SEC play.
“I feel like this defense is one-of-one for sure,” he said earlier this week. “All 11 on the ball, all three levels. It’s just one-of-one, for real. I just feel like everybody on the back end coming and filling gaps, they can also hold their own in coverage. Everybody’s got the speed, the size. It’s just like pick your poison, really.”
No one has been more lethal thus far than the 6-foot-4, 244-pound transfer from Ole Miss.
Umanmielen’s assessment came after the 51-10 opening rout of Clemson in which he had two of the Tigers’ four sacks.
The team upped those numbers even further Saturday against Louisiana Tech with seven sacks — LSU’s most in a game since eight against McNeese State in 2021, the most against an FBS opponent since eight against Louisville in 2016 and tied for the fourth-most in program history.
Umanmielen’s three sacks tied for second-most in a game in the Tigers’ history, a feat most recently accomplished by Bradyn Swinson in 2024 at South Carolina.
The performance is shy of only Chuck Wiley‘s record four at South Carolina in 1995.
“I thought our defense was lights-out,” coach Lane Kiffin said. Saturday. “Again, I can’t imagine what the stats are, but when the first-team defense is out there now through two games, an amazing job. You end up negative yards rushing even with the 2’s, but the first-team was really lights-out. It’s almost like you felt like they were gonna get turnovers on every possession. So that was awesome. Really good job by them against an offense that put up 80 points last week.”
Umanmielen’s five sacks thus far is already more than any LSU player all of last season — and many other seasons — and the most in any two-game stretch since Swinson’s five at South Carolina and against UCLA in 2024. Wiley tallied 5.5 sacks at South Carolina and against Florida in 1995.
The program’s season record is 12 by Arden Key in 2016, a mark that Umanmielen’s five is already 41.7% of his way to matching with just 16.7% of the regular-season schedule played to date.
And while Umanmielen headlines the performance, part of the challenge the Tigers present is that the pressure can come from anywhere.
Seven different players have already recorded sacks this season, including six on Saturday.
“I also think that the team we were going against is probably one of the best defenses that I’ve ever seen,” Louisiana Tech coach Sonny Cumbie said when assessing his Bulldogs’ difficulty moving the football. “They’re really fast. They’re big. They’re athletic.”
True freshman Daverin “Deuce” Geralds II is second on the team with two, Tennessee-transfer edge rusher Jordan Ross has 1.5 and four tackles for loss and “star” safeties Dashawn Spears and C.J. Jimcoily and veteran edge rusher Dylan Carpenter each have one.
Auburn-transfer defensive lineman Malik Blocton record 0.5 against the Bulldogs.
The Tigers’ starting edge rushers in 2025, Jack Pyburn and Patrick Payton, combined for three sacks all of last season — a total that Umanmielen and Ross have already more than doubled through just two games.
The degree of difficulty only ramps up as LSU opens SEC play Saturday at No. 8 Ole Miss (2-0), the first trip this season outside the friendly confines of Tiger Stadium and first of a nine-game conference slate during the remaining 10 games.
