LSU’s third hire on the defensive side of the football has attachments to both its new defensive coordinator and the state of Louisiana.
Twenty-nine coaching veteran Kevin Peoples, who coached edge rushers the past two years at Missouri with Blake Baker, has accepted a similar position at LSU according to several reports.
Baker was recently hired to become the school’s new defensive coordinator and started on Jan. 5.
LSU head coach Brian Kelly made sweeping changes to his defensive coaching staff after the 2023 season, announcing the hirings last week of Baker and defensive line coach Bo Davis of Texas.
Kelly fired defensive coordinator Matt House, defensive line coach Jimmy Lindsey, cornerbacks coach Robert Steeples and safeties coach Kerry Crooks.
Peoples was a standout linebacker at Carroll College in Helena, Montana where he twice earned all-league honors.
Peoples, whose was in the second year of a contract that paid $400,000, arrived at Missouri in 2022 and combined forces with Baker to transform Missouri’s defense into a top 25 unit in ’23. Edge rushers Darius Robinson and Johnny Walker Jr. led the Tigers in sacks.
He was a semifinalist for the ’23 Frank Broyles Award that recognizes the nation’s top assistant coach.
In his first season at Missouri, Peoples is credited with developing edge rusher Isaiah McGuire into a fourth-round draft pick of the Cleveland Browns in 2023. He finished with a career-high 7 ½ sacks in 2022.
Peoples’ coaching journey includes two years as defensive line coach at Indiana, where his unit for the first time led the Big 10 Conference in sacks, and before that was the defensive line coach from 2016-19 at Tulane. He worked with the school’s career leader, Patrick Johnson in sacks with 24 1/2 .
Peoples also spent time at Georgia Southern for two years, UAB for a season, Arkansas for three seasons and Arkansas State for nine years.
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