Lane Kiffin confirms LSU football DE Gabriel Reliford's knee injury

BATON ROUGE – Lane Kiffin confirmed that LSU football sophomore defensive end Gabriel Reliford suffered a torn ACL last week during the team’s second practice of the spring.

Reliford was making his way back from season-ending shoulder surgery, which he needed last year, after missing the last eight games of the regular season.

“That’s a difficult injury, really challenging for him after missing time last year,” Kiffin told reporters following LSU’s practice Tuesday. “He was doing a great job.”

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Reliford was not seen at LSU’s practice this past Saturday and news surfaced later in the weekend that Reliford had suffered a knee injury.

An LSU team official told The Daily Advertiser on Tuesday that his status for the upcoming season is up in the air. Reliford has not been fully ruled out for the 2026 season, but he will be out indefinitely as he’ll need surgery to repair the ligament and rehab.

In two years in Baton Rouge, Reliford has played in 17 games and has recorded 18 tackles, including two tackles-for-loss and a 0.5 sack.

Kiffin said that he has been really impressed with the 6-foot-3, 270-pound defensive end from Shreveport and that not having him out there is a big blow for the Tigers’ defense.

“The way I view the position (is) like receivers, if you’re going to be really good (it’s) because play counts are up nowadays and as you look at the conference, there weren’t many up-tempo teams,” Kiffin said. “To me, even more than ever, OK, to have multiple defensive ends that can rush and can play snaps to play against the tempo, this is a significant loss for us.

“He has a really good future here and we were really excited about how he was performing.”

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Gabriel Reliford knee injury is ‘significant loss’ for LSU football