Derek Stingley and Elias Ricks return as college football's most impressive cornerback duo and just keep stacking up the preseason recognition to back it up. Stingley and Ricks have already been named to the Thorpe Award watch list and on Tuesday, the pair were named to the Nagurski Award watch list.
The Nagurski is awarded annually to college football's best defender by the Football Writers Association of America. Past winners include Chase Young, Aaron Donald, Luke Kuechly and Charles Woodson. LSU's Glenn Dorsey is the only former Tiger to ever win the award during the 2007 season.
Stingley is viewed as one of the premier players in all of college football and returns for a highly anticipated junior season. In addition to the watch lists, Stingley has an opportunity to be just the second player to earn All-American honors three times in his career.
One of the premier defensive backs from a technique perspective, Stingley was injured throughout the 2020 season and was never able to find his stride consistently. He still wound up as one of the best cornerbacks in the shortened 2020 season, one where LSU's secondary was torched week in and week out.
Stingley's viewed by many as a sure fire top five pick in the 2022 NFL draft, which would make it the fourth straight year LSU produces a player in the top five of the draft (Devin White, Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase).
For Ricks, he enters his second season for the Tigers looking to carry the momentum over from a stellar freshman campaign in which he led the Tigers in interceptions along with being second in the SEC with four total. Of his four picks, he took two of them back for touchdowns with one coming in a crucial victory over sixth-ranked Florida.
After an outstanding season, Ricks was named to the Freshman All-America team while earning third team All-America by the Associated Press.
Stingley and Ricks will need to be the driving force of this secondary if the Tigers hope to eliminate the busted coverages and comminucation issues from a season ago. Getting rid of those self imposed errors will do wonders for this group that has as much talent as any team in the SEC.
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