{"id":864970,"date":"2026-04-12T17:06:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/864970\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:06:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:06:28","slug":"the-lsu-player-with-the-most-experience-in-college-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/864970\/","title":{"rendered":"The LSU player with the most experience in college football"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve read much spring content around LSU<\/a> football, you probably have seen Ty Benefield’s name come up quite a bit. Benefield is one of the crown jewels of this transfer class, signing with the Tigers in January as the No. 2 overall safety out of the portal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A multi-year starter at Boise State<\/a>, Benefield is viewed as a valuable, versatile piece to this defense that pair a couple of NFL draft picks entering 2026. He’s collected 235 tackles, 18 tackles for loss, 16 pass breakups and five interceptions in his college career and has every intention of growing all of those numbers in his lone season in Baton Rouge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a piece breaking down the most experienced players in college football<\/a> entering 2026, the CBSSports team highlighted Benefield’s 2,094 snaps as one of the highest over the last several seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Benefield was one of the top transfers in the cycle for a reason. A three-year starter at Boise State, he arrives at LSU as a plug-and-play addition for coordinator Blake Baker<\/a> and a defense that returns just three starters. Benefield ranked as the No. 2 transfer safety in the country by 247Sports after earning first-team All-Mountain West honors in 2025, when he led Boise State with 107 total tackles. He enters 2026 having started 28 consecutive games, bringing proven production and experience to the back end of LSU’s defense.”<\/p>\n

Benefield was great in Saturday’s scrimmage in Tiger Stadium that the media got to view. He was one of four defensive backs to record an interception, making a nice read on a poor decision by Landen Clark<\/a> late in the scrimmage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He’s viewed as one of the leaders not just of this defense but this entire team. Benefield has backed that up early in his time in Baton Rouge as well. The purple and gold have to replace a first round pick in Mansoor Delane<\/a> and a likely second round pick in AJ Haulcy in their secondary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benefield is coming here with a purpose. He saw what Delane and Haulcy did for their careers by transferring to LSU and working in this secondary last season. There’s a belief that he too can have a similar impact by playing his brand of football and in turn, LSU’s defense will reap the rewards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benefield is viewed as a piece that will need to be not just a starting caliber player but a potential All-Conference kind of piece for LSU’s defense to take another step forward in 2026. He’s a great athlete, physical, can tackle in open space and is capable of making impact plays on the ball and in the backfield.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tamarcus Cooley<\/a> and Dashawn Spears<\/a> are the two most likely candidates to play alongside Benefield but don’t count out Faheem Delane<\/a> either. The transfer from Ohio State<\/a> appeared in double digit games for the Buckeyes as a true freshman and looks the part of a potential contributor to this defense as well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“As a third-level guy, as a high safety, the rovers and the free, communication is key. So of course I see myself and as well as Tamarcus Cooley and Dashawn Spears and Faheem and all the guys that we brought in the room, we’re at a high level,” Benefield told reporters earlier this spring.<\/p>\n

“We’re at a high level because we have to communicate. Everybody on the field is of high value, but that communication falls on us. I’m here to just do my job. I’m here to help my teammates out, give them the best look, be the best teammate I can be.”<\/p>\n

Benefield has seen a lot in over 2,000 career snaps. That experience will be put to the test this fall but for now, he’s one of the most important pieces in this defense to help get this team where it ultimately wants to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’ve read much spring content around LSU football, you probably have seen Ty Benefield’s name come up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-864970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116392832721401831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}