LSU football opens first spring practice under Lane Kiffin. Five things to watch

BATON ROUGE – The first opportunity to see what the LSU football team will look like under first-year head coach Lane Kiffin begins Tuesday.

The Tigers open spring practice on the practice fields that morning. While LSU won’t take nowhere near final shape during the 15 allotted practices that team gets, they will provide a great jumping off point for a new coach taking over a program and more than 40 new players that have entered the program.

Kiffin’s bread-and-butter is offense and entire coaching staff on that side of the ball are new to Baton Rouge. Defensive coordinator Blake Baker was retained along with cornerbacks coach Corey Raymond and safeties coach Jake Olsen, so the defense, schematically, won’t be much different.

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With LSU kicking off spring drills under Kiffin for the first time this week, here are five things to watch.

Sam Leavitt and LSU’s other quarterbacks

Certainly this is the biggest question mark surrounding Kiffin’s first spring at LSU. Exactly how healthy is Arizona State junior quarterback transfer Sam Leavitt and how much will be be able to do?

Leavitt had surgery to repair a Lisfranc injury in his foot last season with the Sun Devils, and Kiffin told reporters last month that they expect him to only participate in individual and positional drills, no team stuff.

So the attention turns to USC transfer Husan Longstreet and Elon transfer Landen Clark. This is an important spring for both as they’ll look to develop in Kiffin’s system while competing for a leg up in the backup quarterback battle.

How much offensive line transfers help LSU football

LSU opened up the NIL coffers to bring in a number of offensive linemen from the portal. Colorado transfer Jordan Seaton was the headliner — and the last transfer LSU added — while other guys like Devin Harper from Ole Miss, Aliou Bah from Maryland and Sean Thompkins from Baylor was also other highly sought-after pieces.

Lack of development along the offensive line has been a problem at LSU the last couple of seasons. Due to that, there’s likely to be heated competition at left guard, right guard and right tackle. Braelin Moore should retain his spot at center while Seaton was brought in to play left tackle.

Harlem Berry, Caden Durham and the running backs

What will be worth watching at the running back position is Caden Durham and if he’ll compete for the starting role or has sophomore Harlem Berry locked it up?

Durham finished last season as the team’s leading rusher at 505 yards and three touchdowns but by the end of the year, Berry has assumed the main role. Berry finished with 491 yards and two scores.

Out of the transfer portal, Kiffin and company also added Dilin Jones, Rod Gainey, Jr., Stacey Gage and Raycine Guillory. For this group, the spring provides them a chance to move up and down the depth chart.

Who replaces A.J. Haulcy at safety for LSU football

Conventional wisdom would suggest that Dashawn Spears will slide into one of the starting safety spots alongside Tamarcus Cooley. But LSU went out and landed one of the top safety transfers in Ty Benefield from Boise State. Those around the program believe he’s a starter.

LSU also brought in Ohio State sophomore transfer Faheem Delane, who is Mansoor Delane’s younger brother, and it’s believed he’ll garner some playing time this season. The good news is LSU has depth at the safety position.

Wide receiver shake out

Kiffin and his offensive staff adding double-digit, new pass catchers is one of the more absurd things that happened over the offseason. But LSU only retained one from last season in Phillip Wright Jr. who caught one pass.

Winston Watkins followed Kiffin from Ole Miss to LSU, so many expect him to start with a leg up. Jayce Brown from Kansas State and Eugene Wilson from Florida are other big names to watch during spring.

The rest of the receiving corps includes Malik Elzy, Tyree Holloway, Josh Jackson, Jackson Harris, Tre Brown III, Roman Mothershed along with freshmen Corey Barber, Jabari Mack and Brayden Allen.

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: 5 things to watch during Lane Kiffin’s first spring with LSU football