BREAKING: LSU DE BJ Ojulari Entering 2023 NFL Draft
LSU defensive end BJ Ojulari will enter the 2023 NFL Draft after three seasons with the LSU Tigers. The Marietta, Ga. native is fresh off of a First Team All-SEC year, leading this locker room to a season where they achieved the improbable.
Ojulari, who earned the prestigious No. 18 jersey, totaled 58 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks and a forced fumble this season, but coach Brian Kelly praised him for epitomizing what it means to be a Tiger.
“I would say off the field he embraced the change. He really embraced the mission,” Kelly said for the SEC title game. “That is graduating champions, the excellence that we wanted as a standard here from day one. You need that, right? You need your best players to embrace that. Elected as a captain for us. Led both on and off the field.
“He’s been an edge play-maker for us. I think when you’re talking about excellence both on and off the field, BJ Ojulari would be that guy that we would bring up.”
LSU Will Prioritize Defensive Line in Transfer Portal
With Ojulari declaring for the NFL Draft, what will Jaquelin Roy do? Ojulari’s stock has soared over the course of the last two years, but as for Roy, it certainly fell this season. All signs point to Ojulari entering the draft, but stranger things have happened (Kayshon Boutte’s return).
For Roy, he could benefit off of an extra year in Baton Rouge. Therefore, this position group will need to retool going into 2023. With Maason Smith returning, Mekhi Wingo looking to take an even bigger role next year, Quency Wiggins stepping in and a few more talented guys up front, this unit will need a couple of savvy veterans.
Jamar Cain has proven to be one of the top recruiters in the country at the defensive line position. How will he utilize the portal this month? LSU has dished out an offer to Western Michigan defensive tackle Braden Fiske already.
Fiske has played five years of college football, but remains with one final year of eligibility. He finished the 2022 season with 58 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, six sacks, two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, seven quarterback hurries and three pass breakups. For his collegiate career, he’s tallied 148 tackles, 27.5 tackles for loss and 13.5 sacks across his career.
Brian Kelly’s Transfer Portal Message:
“They have got to be the right fit first,” Kelly said. “They have to recognize the value of an education from LSU. They have to have the right traits. We are not just open for business. We’re not just putting a sign up saying, hey, we are going to take whoever. They have to be the right fit. I prefer that they are from the state of Louisiana if we can find them. And then we are going to address needs based upon how that freshman class marries into it by the particular needs by position class.
“So we are not going to overload a particular position group. In other words, if we have got three or four wide receivers that are freshmen coming in, you may not see a heavy influence in the portal in that position.
“We are going to develop based upon our freshman class, too. So we are doing this at the same time, and also allowing our program to be younger, too. We want to bring both of these along. We don’t always want to be a turn-it-over program where we are bringing in transfers and turning the program over.”
