LSU football: 5 great players who didn’t live up to the NFL hype

LSU football has had many great players star in the NFL, but some former Tigers greats fell into the NFL busts category, and these are the five biggest.

Whether it was under Nick Saban, Les Miles or now Ed Orgeron, among others, LSU football has produced a number of great NFL players. The Cincinnati Bengals are hoping that the next in that lineage of Tigers is quarterback Joe Burrow, fresh off perhaps the greatest season in college football history. And they certainly hope he isn’t another NFL bust from LSU.

For as talented and prestigious of a program as the Tigers have established, no college football team bats 1.000 in terms of producing great NFL prospects and LSU football isn’t excluded from that. No matter how great or impressive some players were during their days playing under the NCAA blanket, some came up short at the pro level.

These five players fit the bill as LSU football greats who, when the time came to continue their success in the NFL, came up short at the next level.

When you think about many of the best NFL players to come out of LSU, Tyrann Mathieu and Patrick Peterson are likely two of the first players mentioned. There’s a reason that the university in Baton Rouge is often referred to as DBU. However, one of the unfortunate misses in that regard came in the form of Morris Claiborne after a highly decorated career with the Tigers.

Claiborne was only a backup in the 2009 season. However, he was a starter the following year as a sophomore and looked the part of the next great LSU cornerback. He was named Second-Team All-SEC — and probably should’ve been First-Team — after making 37 tackles and a team-high five interceptions.

For as good as he was during the 2010 season, Claiborne was even better in his junior campaign. In 14 games, the Tigers standout defensive back had 51 total tackles and six interceptions, including the first and only pick-six of his college career. For his phenomenal year, he was named First-Team All-SEC, First-Team All-American and won the Jim Thorpe Award.

Given all of his success at LSU and the fact that he checked all of the boxes at the NFL Combine, his draft stock was soaring. The Dallas Cowboys loved him so much that they traded their first- and second-round picks in the 2012 NFL Drat to move up to No. 6 to draft him. Unfortunately, he never became the player he was supposed to. Be it due to injuries or simply not being as good as hoped, Claiborne has stuck around the league but has simply not been the elite cornerback it looked like he’d be while he was at LSU.