GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU football coach Brian Kelly told one of his coaching contacts on Monday that he hoped to announce a new defensive line coach on Wednesday.
And that may be current Missouri defensive line coach Al Davis, sources have confirmed. Davis has been in his current position with Mizzou since the 2021 season, but is familiar with LSU’s coaching personnel. He coached under current LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker and current edge rushers coach Kevin Peoples when they had those titles at Missouri in 2022 and ’23.
Lonn Phillips Sullivan of lsuodyssey.com has reported that Davis will be LSU’s next defensive line coach.
BREAKING From https://t.co/mD5mygar9j:#LSU Football is expected to sign Missouri's Defensive Line Coach Al Davis to the same position in Baton Rouge. Our 👇FULL Report https://t.co/wjBoNEzZ1A👇👀👇
— Lonn Phillips Sullivan (@LonnPhillips) March 4, 2025
Al Davis becomes the 🐅 latest D-line coach after leading Mizzou's room since… pic.twitter.com/5C2wmQjnY9
Davis coached the defensive tackles at Illinois in 2020 before going to Missouri. A former Arkansas defensive lineman from 2009-12, he was a graduate assistant at Arkansas from 2014-16 and a co-defensive coordinator at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas from 2017-19. He is a native of College Park, Georgia.
Peoples has been preparing to coach LSU’s defensive line in spring football, which opens on Saturday, should Kelly decide to promote him to the job or if he coaches the line as an interim until a defensive line coach from another staff arrives. Peoples was Indiana’s defensive line coach in 2020 and ’21 and was Tulane’s defensive line coach from 2016-19. Those close to LSU say he is qualified for the job.
Bo Davis was LSU’s defensive line coach for one season in 2024 after leaving that position at Texas, where he coached from 2021-23. Davis left LSU last week to become the New Orleans Saints’ defensive line coach under new head coach Kellen Moore. Davis helped Baker, Peoples and defensive backs coach Corey Raymond significantly improve LSU’s defense last season after a disastrous 2023 season.
Kelly had targeted Florida defensive line coach Gerald Chatman, but he turned the job down last week, according to Bruce Feldman of The Athletic and FOX Sports. But a source with knowledge of college coaching searches told Tiger Rag on Tuesday that Chatman may not have been offered the job by Kelly.
“There are a lot of coaches interested in that job, and LSU has been taking its time talking to a lot of candidates,” the source said. “Kelly hopes to have somebody by Wednesday.”
Chatman was a defensive analyst at LSU in 2021 and the interim defensive line coach during spring practice in 2023, but LSU later hired South Carolina defensive line coach Jimmy Lindsey for that job for the 2023 season. And Chatman was Tulane’s defensive line coach in 2023 before going to Florida in 2024.
Kelly’s next defensive line coach will be his fifth one for his fourth season. His first defensive line coach in the 2022 season was Jamar Cain, who left in March of 2023 to join the staff of new Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton as a pass rush specialist and was promoted to defensive line coach the next year.
Then Kelly hired Lindsey to replace Cain after Chatman’s brief sting. But Lindsey missed that season with cancer and is now a defensive line coach at Western Kentucky. John Jancek moved over from outside linebackers coach at LSU to coach the defensive line in 2023 in Lindsey’s absence.
Jancek and all LSU defensive coaches, including coordinator Matt House, were fired after the 2023 season as the Tigers fielded one of the worst defenses in the nation and one of LSU’s worst in history. Davis replaced Jancek.
Before Kelly’s arrival after the 2021 season, LSU was on its second defensive line coach in the last two seasons of coach Ed Orgeron in 2020 and ’21 with Bill Johnson and Andre Carter.
LSU’s next defensive line coach will be its sixth since the 2021 season.
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