Despite the growth and ever increasing attraction of flashy, big play football, controlling the line of scrimmage remains incredibly important. The more important the forward pass becomes, the more important it becomes to harass and disrupt the passer. Edge rushers get much of the glamor, but strong, athletic interior D lineman are just as significant in the pass rush. Aaron Donald, Fletcher Cox, and others have become dominant forces in the pass rush.
LSU has missed this, despite featuring talented interior lineman, they haven’t really done a fantastic job generating interior pressure, instead utilizing the defensive big men as pure gap stuffers in Aranda’s system, while attempting to generate pressure from standup edge rushing linebackers.