Many CFB analysts are putting national championship expectations on LSU head coach Lane Kiffin for his first year at the program. On his part, Kiffin has continued to bolster the team. As the Tigers prepare for fall camp, the head coach has strengthened his coaching staff by adding a former Nick Saban assistant.

Former Alabama player development director Kevin Sherrer has joined LSU’s defensive staff as an analyst. He joins Kiffin’s team from the UFL’s Birmingham Stallions, where he was working with former Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, who is now the head coach of the Stallions.

Sherrer has about three decades of coaching experience in football, with stints at Alabama, South Alabama, the Georgia Bulldogs, the Tennessee Titans, the New York Giants, and Georgia Tech. His connection with Saban occurred during his second stint at Alabama, after initially joining the program as a graduate assistant from 1998 to 2000. During his second stint, from 2010 to 2012, the Crimson Tide won back-to-back national championships. Kiffin joined Alabama and worked with Saban as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach two years after Sherrer left the program.

Though he enjoyed great success in his player development role at Alabama, it was the only program where he held that role. He has mainly worked as the defensive coordinator or linebackers coach in most of his previous stops and was brought into Kiffin’s team to help defensive coordinator Blake Baker build the team’s defense.

Sherrer was famously the outside linebackers coach when Kirby Smart took over from Mark Richt at Georgia. He proved he was worth retaining, as the program won the SEC championship and reached the national championship game. Georgia’s 2017 defense ranked in the top 12 nationally across major defensive categories.

Before his coaching career, Sherrer was an Alabama player, playing tight end between 1993 and 1995. He had his mind set on coaching from the outset and joined Tuscaloosa County High School as an assistant coach, where he won a state title in 1997. It was after this that he returned to Alabama as a graduate assistant.

Lane Kiffin is known for the strength of his offenses and the high-powered, fast-paced nature of his teams’ schemes. Well, those are some of the perks of having a former offensive coordinator as your head coach.

LSU Tigers defense

The LSU Tigers had a very stable defense in 2025. While the Tigers ranked 23rd in total defense, their total offense ranked 109th, which makes hiring Lane Kiffin a smart decision. The defense features some of the best linebackers in college football, and there was more assurance from one of them at the SEC Media Days.

“The entire defense as a whole… You can tell they’re self-driven to have something to prove,” linebacker TJ Dottery said at SEC Media Days.

Working with TJ Dottery and his group of elite linebackers would be one of Sherrer’s best experiences in Baton Rouge as the team prepares for a great season under Lane Kiffin.