LSU football: 5 most underrated players in LSU Tigers history

Who are some of the most underrated players in LSU football history?

LSU football has underrated players? Since when?

Well, not until Nick Saban arrived in the early 2000s have the LSU Tigers been one of the consistently great programs in college football. Yes, they won and contended for national championships under Paul Dietzel in the 1950s and had a lot of success after that with Charles McClendon. However, we’ve seen the best of LSU football in the last 20-plus years.

To date, LSU has won four national championships, including three this century. With Ed Orgeron winning his first national title last season, LSU has four different head coaches with championship rings, as he joined Dietzel, Saban and Les Miles. Could Orgeron win a second before the end of his LSU coaching career? We’re certainly banking on it. He’s a fantastic recruiter at a blue-blood.

While LSU is normally dripping with talent, particularly in the defensive backfield, not every star player who has played for the Bayou Bengals gets the attention and love he deserves for a great college career. When a program wins as much as LSU has in recent years, it’s hard to spot out great among all the greatness.

So what we’re going to do today is outline five players in the history of LSU football who are criminally underrated. The bulk of these players played for the team during a down cycle of the program. Others may have been at LSU during a period of great winning, but other more dominant players have unfortunately cast a shadow over their own individual greatness.

LSU football has produced several NFL stars, but these five former LSU Tigers are the most underrated LSU football players in LSU Tigers history.

Booger McFarland is best known these days for his two-year stint on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Prior to that, he carved out a successful radio career in Tampa, as well as being an incredible college football analyst for ESPN. He also started on the defensive line for the Super Bowl 37-winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the 2002 NFL season. But he was also a Tiger!

McFarland played defensive tackle for LSU from 1995-1998. He was an immediate starter in the trenches for the 1995 Tigers as a freshman. McFarland would also occasionally play some fullback to help give the LSU offense some juice in the running game. He was a disruptive playmaker all four years he played for the Tigers from 1995-1998.

After helping LSU secure bowl game victories in his first three seasons in the SEC, McFarland was named a team captain during his 1998 senior season. He earned First-Team All-SEC and First-Team All-American status during the 1998 campaign, culminating in a trip to the 1999 Senior Bowl. He was drafted No. 15 overall by the Buccaneers in the 1999 NFL Draft.

McFarland played nine seasons in the NFL. His first seven-and-a-half came with the Buccaneers. During the 2006 NFL season, he was traded to the Indianapolis Colts to be reunited with his former Tampa Bay head coach Tony Dungy. The Colts went on to win Super Bowl 41 over the Chicago Bears. Though a great player, we don’t appreciate his football life as much as we should.