Coach Kelly provides latest on Denver Harris, Maason Smith and the Tigers offense

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Who’s in and who’s out? It’s not necessarily a burning question for Brian Kelly and his LSU Tigers today. But there aren’t that many practice dates left to get ready for that huge Florida State opener in Orlando.

LSU cornerback Denver Harris hasn’t been at practice and he wasn’t in the team picture so what’s going on?

“Denver is handling some personal matters and if he takes care of everything could have him back this weekend,” said LSU head coach Brian Kelly.

LSU star defensive lineman Maason Smith suffering an injury over the weekend, but he’s working his way back.

“You know he’s been banged up a little bit, look he’s been out for a year and everything hurts a little more after coming back into it,” said Kelly “But he had an ankle sprain nothing that we’re too concerned with, but we’re concerned with everything right? When you have a player of his caliber so we’re going to be careful with him.”

The LSU offense seems to be humming along with Jayden Daniels and Garrett Nussmeier leading the way, but let’s be careful with too much praise.

“I wouldn’t necessarily go with well-oiled machine, I like the way it sounds, but Daniels and Nussmeier obviously they can run the offense, they can get you into and get you out of bad plays,” said Kelly. “They make the coach look really good. I would give a lot of it to the quarterback and his ability to run this offense with a lot more confidence and control.”

Well there’s no pass rush and they’re not tackling, but during the 7-on-7 drills, we’re allowed to watch wide receiver Malik Nabers really is dominating people. Coach Kelly says a change in Nabers mental approach is paying big dividends.

“I thought at times he got distracted quite frankly and let things on the peripheral get in the way in how he came into practice and he had some ups and downs during his practice,” Kelly said. “This year so far very little to no distractions, if he stays at that level and eliminates the distractions that are so easy to pop up today. He’s in line to do some real special things.”

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