With Ja’Marr Chase gone, Derek Stingley Jr. should play both ways for LSU football

Could Derek Stingley Jr. seriously play both ways for LSU football in 2020?

Ja’Marr Chase leaving the LSU football program may help Derek Stingley Jr. play both ways.

LSU football has seen a mass exodus of players opt out of the 2020 college football season, including what was their best returning player in Chase. As a true sophomore, Chase put up video game numbers catching passes from Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow. The 2019 Fred Biletnikoff Award winner has since declared for the 2021 NFL Draft, but Stingley still remains.

Stingley is now the most talented player on the LSU Tigers. A consensus All-American cornerback as a true freshman, Stingley has taken some snaps in practice playing wide receiver. Though players like Terrace Marshall Jr. and Racey McMath now headline the LSU receiving corps, maybe there are a few packages where Stingley can play some receiver with Chase out of the picture?

Playing both ways would add an interesting wrinkle to a strange LSU season.

LSU is DBU for a reason. Safety Grant Delpit took home the Jim Thorpe Award last season and Stingley is expected to do the same, even with four FBS conferences not playing ball this fall. He’s already the best defensive back in the country, so why not let him see what he can do as a receiver? He’d be Steve Ensminger‘s No. 4 wide receiver option at best as the ultimate gadget guy.

What favors Stingley potentially playing both ways is multi-faceted. One, he’s outstanding in his own field as a shutdown cover corner, so he’s earned this rare opportunity to play both ways. Two, the amount of players leaving the LSU program provide more chances for a true sophomore to crack the receiver rotation. And three, the LSU coaching staff has built up enough clout to allow it.

Head coach Ed Orgeron won his first national championship as a head coach. Ensminger coordinated one of the most prolific offenses in college football history a season ago. While Stingley has a new defensive coordinator this year in Bo Pelini with Dave Aranda taking the Baylor Bears’ head coaching gig, Pelini doesn’t have to worry about what Stingely does in his secondary.

Even though new starting quarterback Myles Brennan may give the Tigers a repeat Heisman Trophy winner, Stingley is giving off the best kind of Tyrann Mathieu “Honey Badger” vibes. Back in 2011, the true sophomore defensive back returned kicks and did a little bit of everything as LSU’s best player. He was a Heisman finalist and the star player on the 2011 national runner-up squad.

Though he doesn’t play the right position to do it, Stingley is the rare defensive talent who can conceivably get to New York and go all Charles Woodson on us. What helped the Michigan man win the 1997 Heisman Trophy was that he played some receiver for Lloyd Carr in the Wolverines’ national championship season. That’s what it’s going to take for Stingley to buck the trend.

Look, given the amount of players who left for the NFL this offseason, as well as the guys who either opted out or transferred, it’s becoming increasingly less likely LSU will even remotely be able to recreate the magic from a season ago. They’ve earned a slight rebuilding year, but even while they reload, let’s be captivated by the possibility of Stingley playing both ways in 2020.

If any player is capable of pulling it off this season, it has to be Stingley with the Bayou Bengals.

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