O-line woes

LSU has experienced problems in a lot of areas this season, but among the Tigers’ most glaring issues is offensive line play.

The Tigers are averaging 70.6 rushing yards to rank 128th nationally. They also have allowed 11 sacks to rank 73rd.

This isn’t what Tigers Coach Ed Orgeron had in mind when he hired Brad Davis from Arkansas in June to be his offensive line coach and replace James Cregg, who was fired and is suing LSU for breach of contract after the school said he violated NCAA rules.

Orgeron said this week that the offensive line has suffered from a lack of continuity going back to training camp when players were in and out of the lineup because of injuries.

“Listen, we lost our offensive line coach — this is not an excuse, it’s a fact — in the middle of the summer,” Orgeron said. “[Davis] comes in and he’s a great coach, but there’s a different style, there’s some different techniques.

“Our guys are veteran players, but they’ve got to get used to that.”

The Tigers rushed 25 times for 33 yards in losing to Auburn at home 24-19 last week.

Excluding LSU quarterback Max Johnson being sacked three times for 19 yards in losses, the Tigers’ rushing totals were still awful — 22 carries for 52 yards.

“We need to be more committed to the run,” Orgeron said. “We’re doing some different things this week hopefully that can help us with the run.

“Obviously having a new coach in the middle of the summer teaching different things could affect stuff, but it shouldn’t be to the extent that we’re not very good running the ball. That should not be a factor.”

The good news for Davis is that he signed a three-year contract with an average salary of $830,000 at LSU and he’ll be owed the balance of the deal if he’s fired without cause.