Afternoon Update: Polls & Peveto

Few news items for a Sunday that...relatively I guess, seems slow.

For one, LSU moved up to No. 21 in the Coaches’ Poll:

1, Alabama(64), 12-0, 1600
2, Ohio State, 11-1, 1520
3, Clemson, 11-1, 1475
4, Washington, 11-1, 1388
5, Wisconsin, 10-2, 1298
6, Michigan, 10-2, 1265
7, Oklahoma, 9-2, 1223
8, Penn State, 10-2, 1156
9, Colorado, 10-2, 1116
10, Oklahoma State, 9-2, 1018
11, USC, 9-3, 965
12, Florida State, 9-3, 902
13, West Virginia, 9-2, 814
14, Western Michigan, 12-0, 659
15, Louisville, 9-3, 554
16, Florida, 8-3, 515
17, Stanford, 9-3, 474
18, Virginia Tech, 9-3, 467
19, Auburn, 8-4, 442
20, Navy, 9-2, 380
21, LSU, 7-4, 315
22, Nebraska, 9-3, 309
23, South Florida, 10-2, 237
24, Utah, 8-4, 159
25, Iowa, 8-4, 114

With Auburn and Florida still ahead of the Tigers, the Sugar Bowl seems pretty remote, although there’s still a distant possibility if Florida is punished by the College Football Playoff committee for an ugly SEC title game loss. With Alabama a lock to make the playoff the Sugar must take the next highest-rated SEC team.

That would likely put LSU in one of the Florida bowl games on New Year’s Eve, or the Outback Bowl on Jan. 2. SB Nation’s Jason Kirk is currently predicting LSU in the Citrus Bowl versus North Carolina.

In other news, it didn’t take Coach O long to start reshaping the coaching staff, with the announcement that the school would part ways with special teams coach Bradley Dale Peveto. LSU issued the following statement:

“We appreciate Bradley Dale and the work he put into this program. However, at this time we have decided to move in a different direction with our special teams.”

Peveto had long been an unpopular figure here, with a dreadful 2015 unit once he came in and a 2016 unit that didn’t improve by much. LSU’s special teams evened out a little once Peveto moved to a more dedicated role once Orgeron took over (he’d been helping Dave Aranda coach linebackers previously), but it wasn’t enough. Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman indicated that Orgeron will pursue somebody with NFL experience. One has to wonder if that means a potential return for Peveto’s predecessor, Thomas McGaughey, currently running special teams for the Carolina Panthers. McGaughey also has ties in the Houston area, which was Peveto’s focus as well.

SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey is also reporting that Aranda will be signing a nice contract extension with LSU shortly as well. Football Scoop also corroborated the report.

Also didn’t take long for Orgeron to deploy his official recruiting social media bag-signal either:

The new Tiger would be Class of 2018 safety Kaden Sterns, the No. 4 safety and No. 5 player in the state of Texas for 2018. Will there be more coming? Be on the lookout, as Orgeron also visited with 2017 five-star Marvin Wilson this weekend, and will reportedly be visiting running back Cam Akers this week.