BATON ROUGE — LSU football is officially one week away from its 2025 season opener at Clemson in a top 10 Week 1 showdown at Memorial Stadium Aug. 30 (6:30 p.m. CT, ABC).
With just seven days to go, head coach Brian Kelly and LSU headed inside Tiger Stadium Saturday night for the team’s 21st practice of the preseason as the prep for the season nears an end. The media were able to view most of the session.
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LSU held a “scrimmage” of sorts but there was no tackling and the team worked mostly on situational things as well as worked a lot of scout team and special teams.
PREDICTING LSU’S 3 PERMANENT OPPONENT UNDER NEW SEC SCHEDULE FORMAT
The most notable thing about LSU’s practice was who was not practicing as a few projected starters and some other key contributors were not out there.
Center Braelin Moore was off to the side in the early going of practice, working individually but did not go through anything with the rest of the team. Two other offensive linemen were limited or out completely in freshman tackle Caruis Curne, who is vying for the starting right tackle position with Weston Davis who was practicing Saturday. Freshman Solomon Thomas has been out all preseason with a leg injury and he remains out.
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Junior wide receiver Nic Anderson was seen on an exercise bike at the beginning of practice, and he was not dressed out with the team and did not participate. Anderson has already been limited this preseason right at the start of fall camp as he was healing up from an offseason car accident. But he’s been fully healthy every day since.
The biggest absence on defense was projected starting defensive tackle Dominick McKinley. This was the first time McKinley has missed any time at practice that the media has observed so it is unclear if he is dealing with an injury or if Kelly and the coaching staff are just managing his workload.
Other defenders that were out were safety Austin Ausberry, defensive end C.J. Jackson and freshman linebacker Keylan Moses.
Media visits with Kelly Monday to open up Clemson week so some answers to why some of these guys were out Saturday will likely come then.
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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: LSU football missing pair of starters at practice Saturday
