Stripes of the Week: Week 4 – Texas A&M

If you’re new to the series, David Billiot Jr. and I snake-draft, David Billiot Jr. and I snake-draft to hand out Stripes of the Week for our podcast Geaux Deep Dive. The first picks we make get three stripes, the second picks get two and the last picks get one to highlight our top performers of the week.

A note before we start: we were joined by our friend Justin Babin of Babin on the Bayou for our Texas A&M Recap. Since it was David’s birthday, we let him pick first.

Here are week 4’s Stripes of the Week:

Three Stripes: Jackson Harris (David), Sam Leavitt (Babin), Blake Baker (Zach)

With Trey’Dez Green going down, someone needed to step up to fill the massive void he left. In comes Jackson Harris. After recording 963 yards and 12 touchdowns a year ago at Hawaii, expectations for Harris were fairly high. Heading into the game against Texas A&M, Harris had just 117 yards on five catches, but when the Tigers needed him to show up and show out, he did. Harris more than doubled his catches and well surpassed his season yardage, taking six catches for 163 yards and scoring his first and second touchdowns as a Tiger. Harris cemented himself as a solid deep threat for LSU, improving his yards per catch from 23.4 to 25.5 after Saturday. The relationship Harris has with Sam Leavitt blossomed right before our eyes, and he will continue to be a reliable target as the season progresses.

One of the two biggest scapegoats amongst the fan base following the loss to Ole Miss was Sam Leavitt; specifically, he was exiting the pocket too early and missing receivers who would come open. That changed on Saturday. After Leavitt picked up a knock in his leg, his mobility took a step back, but what that did was force him to sit in the pocket, go through his progressions and find the open man, which he did with ease against the Aggie defense. Leavitt completed 17 of his 23 passes for 312 yards and two touchdowns while scrambling for 22 yards without being sacked, but still tossing one interception. Never should injuries be celebrated, but if this tweak is all it took for Leavitt to get comfortable in the pocket, then he and LSU will be much better on the other side as long as the injury is not serious.

For the first time in Stripes history, we have a coach breaking into the list. The other, and arguably main, scapegoat of the Ole Miss loss is Blake Baker. The picture painted all week by some talking heads and pessimists in the fan base was that Blake Baker does not have the ability to stop a mobile quarterback. To their point, Marcel Reed has been Baker’s biggest challenge since he took over as the LSU Defensive Coordinator. Combined in 2024 and 2025, Reed was 14 of 23 passing for 272 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, along with 22 carries for 180 yards and five touchdowns on the ground. With a more talented pass rush and better offensive support, Baker schemed up one of his best performances to date, holding Reed to -13 yards rushing on ten carries while he completed just ten of his 26 passes for 106 yards. The Tiger defense was constantly making Reed uncomfortable, recording five sacks, four QB hurries and one interception that we will talk about in a moment. Blake Baker on average now allows just north of 30 rushing yards per game to quarterbacks during his time as the LSU DC. There’s no shortage of good offenses and dynamic quarterbacks on the horizon for Baker’s defense, but if they can continue to perform as they did against Clemson, LA Tech and Texas A&M, then this defense has a chance to go down as one of the best Tiger units in recent memory.

Two Stripes: Deuce Geralds (Zach), Winston Watkins Jr. (Babin), Tamarcus Cooley (David)

Start the campaign now; Deuce Geralds should win the Shaun Alexander Award for the most outstanding freshman of the season if he keeps playing as he has been. It is unusual for defensive tackles to have the stats Geralds has this season, let alone a freshman defensive tackle. Fifth on the team in tackles with 13, four sacks, one forced fumble and two QB hurries. Beyond his season stats, Geralds was a major reason why A&M struggled offensively, recording five tackles and two sacks. Talking about just how good Geralds has been this season could take hours. The freshman is going to be an absolute game-wrecker for years to come.

Still the undisputed WR1, Winnie Watkins continues to be Sam Leavitt’s most trusted target. Against A&M, Watkins posted his second 100-plus-yard performance of the season, reeling in five of his six targets for 107 yards. You could imagine that with Trey’Dez Green going down for some time, teams would start to focus on limiting Watkins’ production, but with the emergence of Jackson Harris this week, that became more difficult. As the rest of the receiving corps continues to build trust with Leavitt, it will be even harder for defenses to focus on Watkins, opening the door for him to show off more of that big-play ability.

Arguably, Tamarcus Cooley should have been a three-stripe earner this week. Last week against Ole Miss, he was forced to move down to the Star role with the injury to Dashawn Spears, but this week he moved back to safety and once again earned his stripes. Three tackles, one sack and one interception nine times out of ten should earn you three stripes, but with his coach taking the three-stripe spot, he will have to settle for two. Despite the safety and Star positions seemingly being a game of musical chairs, all three players have been performing well and continue to need to, as the linebacker room in front of them has been hit by the injury bug.

One Stripe: P.J. Woodland (David), Ty Benefield (Babin), Landen Clark (Zach)

Coming off of the Ole Miss performance, P.J. Woodland performed very well against the Aggies, returning to the Woodland that Tiger fans have come to expect. Four tackles and two pass breakups against a really good Texas A&M receiving corps. Outside of the Ole Miss game, you have not heard the names of LSU’s two starting cornerbacks very often, and at that position it is a very good thing!

The other piece of the musical-chairs trio at safety and Star, along with Jhase Thomas and Tamarcus Cooley, is Ty Benefield. Benefield slotted in at the Star this week, a position that fits his player profile very well, and it showed as he led the team in tackles with nine. If Benefield continues to play the Star role closer to the line of scrimmage, he may start to look even more like his idol Tyrann Mathieu.

A bit of a wild-card pick for the last stripe of the draft, especially when you look at the box score and see Landen Clark did not complete a pass on any of his five attempts, but the film will show two drops that could have been touchdowns and the swagger and confidence of a player you would easily forget was playing at the FCS level for Elon less than a year ago. That confidence showed up when Clark was tapped to replace an injured Leavitt in the red zone, and the game was still somewhat within reach. He bounced a designed QB run around the edge for a touchdown to make it 28-3. The ceiling for Clark is so high, but the questions for the upcoming week are how much Leavitt will play considering the injury, and what Clark will do with the keys to the full offense if he gets the chance against McNeese.

Honorable Mentions:

Princewill Umanmielen: Six tackles, one sack

Davhon Keys: Five tackles

Harlem Berry: Seven carries for 59 yards

Stephiylan Green: Two tackles, one sack

T.J. Dottery: Seven tackles, one pass broken up