SPRINGHILL -- LSU sophomore linebacker Devin White's ascension this season as one of the top defenders in the SEC can be traced to where it all began, this rural town with a population of less than 6,000. Between the end of the 2016 regular season and LSU's appearance in the Citrus Bowl on New Years' Eve, players had time off. White took his opportunity to return to his hometown, tucked in the northwest corner of Louisiana and bordering Arkansas. White spent time with family and his former peewee coach and longtime mentor Shaun Houston. Houston recalled the two sitting in his living room as White gave a scouting report on LSU's bowl opponent -- Louisville and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Lamar Jackson. White told Houston he almost wished LSU was playing Florida State and shifty running back Dalvin Cook. Why?
"It's easier to tackle a running back than it is to tackle a dual-threat quarterback," Houston said of White's assessment. Houston reminded White, who wasn't yet starting for LSU, that he was prepared for the moment -- no matter the opponent. On White's first play with 4:54 remaining in the first quarter, he blitzed by Louisville's right guard and into the backfield. White charged at Jackson, who attempted to give him a Heisman-like stiff-arm and backpedaled. It didn't work. White corralled Jackson for a 19-yard loss and his first career sack. White took a rare moment of doubt and turned it in his favor, a sign of things to come for LSU's young linebacker.
BORN LEADER
White has led LSU in tackles in five of its six games, including 13 in last week's win at Florida after which he was named the co-SEC Defensive Player of the week.
More impressive, he is the defensive player-rich SEC's leading tackler with 62 stops, 12 more than the next closet defender. White attributes his fast start to his many conversations with LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda and head coach Ed Orgeron. "I feel like I'm prepared for this," White said. "I watch a lot of film with Coach Aranda. I talk with Coach O, because he's been at a lot of different programs. So I feel like a pro."
Despite being in only his second season and a first-time starter, White has morphed into a leadership role on the defense that isn't easily measured by statistics. He barks out signals during games, gets teammates properly aligned and serves as a positive voice during trying times, heady work for an underclassman. White, frustrated by LSU's loss to non-conference foe Troy earlier this season, even called out his teammates for a lack of preparation. LSU junior cornerback Donte Jackson said White has a "top two or three" football IQ among the Tigers' defenders and even compared him to Aranda. "His mental is way up; his football IQ is way up," Jackson said. "He's like a second Aranda on the field, kind of like how Duke (Riley) was last year. Duke (now with the Atlanta Falcons) knew every play. He knew what the offense was going to run before they ran it. That's how Devin is this year. "He takes a lot of positives from film. He'll come to me on a Monday, five days before the game and tell me everything about the team we're playing on Saturday. That just shows me as the captain of the defensive backs, that shows me I can trust him."
April Thomas, White's guidance counselor at North Webster, said White always possessed leadership skills. When White would walk by the school office and see teammates in trouble or making up work, he'd always offer support. "I think it was his upbringing," Thomas said. "His home life, his mom and his grandma and his family support him. They're a very supportive family, especially his mom. She's going to demand that discipline. He's going to have to stay focused, but not only that but you have to be respectful. Because if you want respect, you have to give respect. He's learned it that way."
It was the beginnings of the leadership White has shown in Baton Rouge. "He's always been a leader," Coesha White-Standokes, White's mother, said. "He's always been bigger. Even though he's younger than a lot of other people, he was always bigger so he always kind of took charge at some point."
'IT' FACTOR
White's success doesn't surprise Houston. He remembered the first time he saw White's prowess on the practice field as the 10-year-old's peewee coach. After watching White deliver a bone-jarring hit during tackling drills, Houston walked over to White-Standokes, who was standing along the fence. "I told her, 'Coesha, if this kid keeps his head on straight, he's going to write his own ticket to whatever university he wants,'" Houston said sitting his office at Webster Junior High in Minden, where he's the assistant principal. "You know special when you see it. Especially if you're someone that's been around the sport a long time. You know when someone has 'it.' And he did."
Doris White, Devin's grandmother, said as soon as she saw him on the field with Houston's peewee program, she too knew her grandson was going to be special. "They always played the league ball, but once I seen Coach Shaun convince him to get in there and he started playing, I already knew," Doris White said. "It was a done deal. When you got a mentor that sees something in a child, even before he knows, then you already know he's going to be something special."
White stood out in more ways than one as a youngster. At 5 feet 10 and 165 pounds, he towered above his peers. White-Standokes remembered having to bring Devin's birth certificate to games to prove to the parents of opposing teams her son was indeed eligible to play in the peewee league. White was well aware of his physical gifts, which at first limited his play. "When he played peewee with Shaun, he got in the habit of not tackling as hard as he was because he was so much bigger and parents would say things," White-Standokes said. "So he got to where he would just push." White eventually grew out of just pushing opponents and used his skill set to tackle and mow them over.
ON THE FAST TRACK
By the time he arrived at North Webster High School, White showed that he could make an impact on both sides of the ball. He started every game in which he played, according to Knights coach John Ware. "He came walking by and someone said, 'That's that kid,'" Ware said. "I hadn't heard about him. They said that's Devin White, he's supposed to be pretty good. I said 'Him?' because he looked like a grown man in the ninth grade. For me, as a coach, that was the hard thing. You don't see people like that very often. He had a lot of natural ability to begin with. You looked at him like a grown man, but he was still a kid at that time."
A year later, White was garnering attention from colleges across the country. After he ran a 4.47-second 40-yard dash at LSU's camp the summer before his sophomore season, he got a scholarship offer from the Tigers. Six weeks later, Alabama came calling. The attention was warranted. White rushed for 5,815 yards and 85 touchdowns in high school -- including 2,287 yards and 30 touchdowns as a junior. He also had a pair of 90-plus tackle seasons, 99 as a sophomore and 93 as a junior.