Spears’ ACL Injury Strips LSU of Its Star Hybrid

An MRI on Sunday showed LSU Star Dashawn Spears suffered a season-ending ACL injury in the 32-24 loss at Ole Miss. The junior left at the 14:17 mark of the second quarter and did not return.

No. 10 LSU is 2-1 and 0-1 in the SEC. The Tigers host No. 23 Texas A&M on Sept. 26 with a hybrid job to fill, not a standard safety slot.

LSU Radio Called Him Out at 14:17

Spears plays the star, a linebacker-safety mix in defensive coordinator Blake Baker’s front. He was engaged with an Ole Miss blocker on a 22-yard run by Kewan Lacy when teammate PJ Woodland was blocked into his lower left leg.

Trainers helped him off. He went into the tent, then appeared on crutches. LSU Radio ruled him out for the rest of the night. Sophomore CJ Jimcoily took the star snaps, and Ole Miss finished that series.

The Rebels went 11 plays and 92 yards. Trinidad Chambliss hit Traylon Ray for a 21-yard touchdown, and the lead became 17-0. LSU later scored 17 straight to tie it at 24-24, then Chambliss ran 14 yards at 6:14 of the fourth and Ole Miss added a two-point run for 32-24.

THE WEEKEND IN OXFORD

1. Sept. 19, 2026: Spears leaves at 14:17 of the second quarter on Lacy’s 22-yard run and is ruled out.
2. Sept. 19, 2026: Jimcoily enters at star; Ole Miss caps the 11-play, 92-yard drive with Ray’s 21-yard score for 17-0.
3. Sept. 20, 2026: Lane Kiffin says both Spears and tight end Trey’Dez Green are on crutches and declines a timetable.
4. Sept. 20, 2026: An MRI shows a season-ending ACL tear, per Matt Zenitz, who cited sources.

Kiffin, in his first season in Baton Rouge, was back in Oxford against the program he left. The Tigers erased a 17-point hole and still walked out 0-1 in league play, with the MRI still to come.

Baker Built the Front Around a Hybrid

Calling Spears a starting safety undersells the job. The star has to fit the run, blitz, and play man coverage. Baker used that slot last season with Harold Perkins Jr. before Perkins left for the NFL. Spears moved there in the spring after two years as a third safety and a dime piece.

Kiffin did not talk like a coach who had a clean next man up. He talked like a coach who had lost a body type.

Spears is really unique and has the ability to play in a lot of the defenses. He’s really been an integral part of how well we’ve played on defense. CJ is a good young player. We’ll talk about it the next few days and figure it out.

Lane Kiffin, LSU head coach, Sunday teleconference

That is the second hit. Jimcoily can take the snaps. He cannot automatically give Baker the same mix of length and coverage, which is what let the staff change looks without changing personnel. LSU still has starting safety Tamarcus Cooley and Boise State transfer Ty Benefield in the back end. Those are safeties. The vacant chair is the one that lined up in the box and on the slot.

On the field, the staff already started mixing answers. Jimcoily went in first. Redshirt freshman Jhase Thomas also got star work. Extra-safety groupings with Cooley, Thomas, and Benefield appeared as the game stretched. Corner PJ Woodland even slid inside at times. That is a coordinator searching, not a depth chart clicking.

Who Plays Star Against Texas A&M?

Jimcoily is the first name because he was the first man in. He finished with two tackles and a quarterback hurry. He had worked at star in the spring with Spears, so the language is not foreign. He is still a sophomore who had not started this season.

WHO CAN PLAY STAR NOW

• CJ Jimcoily: Sophomore who replaced Spears on Saturday and posted two tackles and a hurry.
• Jhase Thomas: Redshirt freshman who also took star snaps after the injury.
• Tamarcus Cooley: The starting safety who already logged a full 2025 as a weekly starter.
• Ty Benefield: The Boise State transfer who arrived with a long run of starts in the Mountain West.

Kiffin said the staff would spend the next few days on it. The SEC availability report is due Wednesday night, with updates Thursday through Saturday, but Spears is not a week-to-week question. The ACL closed that file. The live question is which of those four wears the star on first down against Texas A&M, and whether Baker has to drop a coverage or a pressure to protect whoever it is.

Draft watchers had already started treating Spears as more than a local starter. Zenitz wrote that scouts had mentioned him as an emerging name for the next NFL draft, even in his first year as a weekly starter. A junior ACL usually shoves that clock back a year. LSU still has him on the roster in 2027 if he comes back here. The 2026 defense does not.

Five Weeks to Rebuild It Before November

The calendar is the one break inside the injury. After A&M, LSU gets McNeese, a trip to Kentucky, Mississippi State at home, and Auburn on the road, then an open date on Oct. 31. That stretch is where a new star has to grow, because Alabama, Texas and Tennessee still ahead do not wait on a depth chart.

LSU’S REMAINING 2026 SLATE

LSU athletics listed those remaining Top 25 names after Sunday’s poll, with 10 SEC teams in both the AP and coaches rankings. A&M fell to Kentucky 31-21 and sits No. 23 in the AP poll and No. 20 in the coaches poll. Saturday is still a ranked home game, and it is the third Top 25 opponent in LSU’s first four weeks, the first time that has happened since 2011.

If the Tigers take care of the middle of the slate, they can reach November at 7-1. They can also limp there with a star still in tryout mode, and then No. 8 Alabama and No. 1 Texas arrive in Tiger Stadium on back-to-back Saturdays. The injury does not decide those games by itself. It decides how many looks Baker can still show when they do.

Two Picks Against Florida Changed His Path

LSU lists Spears as a 6-foot-3 junior from Denham Springs, 208 pounds, jersey No. 10. He came in as a four-star safety, No. 4 in the country at the position and No. 3 in Louisiana on the On3 composite. As a high school senior he had 51 tackles, nine interceptions, nine breakups, and three defensive touchdowns. He was born in Utah and grew up just east of campus.

He played 26 games with four starts before this season and had 53 tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss, a sack, and two interceptions. The 2024 freshman year was 13 games, 24 tackles, and one breakup. In 2025 he played all 13 games, started the Texas Bowl against Houston, and posted a career-high nine tackles that night. The season line was 29 tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss, a sack, two breakups, and those two picks.

Both interceptions came in the 20-10 win over Florida. He took the second one back 58 yards for a touchdown, and LSU’s defense had five interceptions in the game. The league named him SEC Defensive Player of the Week. The next day he was the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week. That night is why 2026 was supposed to be the full-time year, not a continuation of the rotation behind A.J. Haulcy and Cooley.

SPEARS’ 2026 LINE

• The role: Full-time starter at star in the first three games after two seasons as a rotation safety.
• The production: Seven tackles, five solo, one sack, one tackle for loss, one pass breakup, and one hurry.
• The honor year: Two interceptions against Florida in 2025, one returned 58 yards, plus the Houston bowl start.

He never got a fourth start in 2026. The season is now a three-game file and a rehab calendar.

Green Walks, the Aggies Come to Town

The other starter who left Oxford on crutches got better news. Green, LSU’s leading receiver at 14 catches for 222 yards, had four catches for 60 yards before he went out in the fourth quarter. His mother wrote that he had “some bad sprains and bruises,” that surgery would not be needed, and that he will miss some games. Kiffin would not confirm a timetable Sunday and said it was too early in the week.

So the Tigers lost the star for the year and the top tight end for some of the next month, on the same night they dropped a Top 10 game. Kiffin called the pair “not ideal for sure.” The defense that has to host A&M is the one that already spent a half chasing Chambliss without Spears, then spent a second half tying the score without a finished answer at the position.

Unfortunate injury development for LSU:

An MRI today showed that standout defensive back Dashawn Spears suffered a season-ending ACL injury against Ole Miss, sources tell @CBSSports pic.twitter.com/3EUHpizwiQ

— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) September 20, 2026

LSU stayed in the AP Top 10 on Sunday, at No. 10, and No. 11 in the coaches poll, and is hosting Texas A&M at 6:30 p.m. on ABC. The availability report will list Green. It will not list Spears. Baker has five weeks of ordinary football to teach a new star the job Perkins and then Spears made look like the defense’s extra gear, and then Alabama walks into Tiger Stadium on Nov. 7.