Monday morning college comments; updated … Just a follow-up to the note on LSU WR Kayshon Boutte below after his very disappointing outing against Florida State late night. There are now actually some concerns that he’s even still with the program. However, Boutte has reportedly scrubbed any and all references to LSU from his social media profile which suggests there are at least some issues there. Stay tuned!
I expect our colleague Pigskin Paul Guillemette will have more to say in his weekly college football review column later this week, but a couple of things did jump out watching this weekend’s big games – and there were come great games. For starters, LSU WR Kayshon Boutte, arguably the top-rated receiver going into the season with top 10 potential, had a truly miserable game in the Tigers’ dramatic 24-23 last play loss to Florida State last night. Boutte just never appeared to have his head in the game as he finished with just 2 catches for 20 yards, dropped two others and couldn’t come down with a contested jump ball in the end zone; in fact, Boutte spent significant minutes in the key latter parts of the game on the bench. And we plan to take another more in-depth look at the tape, but on first glance it appeared that Ohio State LT Paris Johnson, another potential top ten prospect for the upcoming draft, really struggled at times in the Buckeyes’ win Saturday over Notre Dame. The OSU offensive line did two lead two late scoring drives largely on the ground that cemented the win, but in pass protection, Johnson was allowing way too much penetration off the snap and had trouble planting and redirecting when forced to deal with counter moves. At the same time, we can imagine pro scouts around the NFL scrambling to add Florida State DE Jared Verse to their edge rusher ranking. Verse, who is listed at 6-4, 250 and has some speed and he was part of a state championship relay team in high school, averaged a sack a game in two years at FCS Albany before transferring to FSU this year. People wondered if he would be able to translate that productivity at the FBS level, but if his performance against LSU last night was any indication that ain’t going to be an issue as he was in Tigers’ QB Jayden Daniels face all night.
