College Football Recruiting 2013: Crucial Players for LSU Tigers to Replace

The SEC champion LSU Tigers had a good, not great, recruiting class in 2012. At least not great by their usual standards and coach Les Miles is out to fix that immediately.

The locker room of players in Baton Rouge is going to be good enough to compete for another SEC title in the upcoming year, possibly even a BCS Championship, and they could lose a lot of good young talent to the NFL after the season.

It certainly is not guaranteed that they'll have to replace everyone, but it is always better to be safe than sorry.

Sam Montgomery, DE

There was talk of this dominant defensive lineman taking off for the pros this year, but he decided to return for another season on the Bayou much to the excitement of Les Miles and the Tigers.

A year ago, he led LSU with nine sacks and also had 13 tackles for loss among with 44 tackles overall.

He will most certainly be heading to the NFL after the 2012 season and will more than likely be a first-round pick.

LSU picked up only two defensive ends in the 2012 class, and will look to add more quality players come signing day 2013. They currently have four offers out to defensive ends.

Tyrann Mathieu, CB

The Honey Badger could return for his senior season, but if he puts together another Heisman campaign, it could spark a run for the cash.

More than just a cornerback, the Tigers will need to find a way to replace Mathieu's overall playmaking skills on both defense and special teams. It doesn't necessarily have to be a cornerback, but they need a return man and ball hawk to step up.

They landed three cornerbacks and two safeties in the 2012 class, but none carried higher than a 3-star grade. They did, however, land two 4-star athletes.

The 2013 class, which consists of six commits thus far, has three athletes and one safety. Other offers already out include two more athletes, five corners (one is committed to Ohio State) and two more safeties.

It is wishful thinking that they'll find return man/defender/ball hawk like Mathieu all in one, but they can hope they find someone in there to do the job.

Alex Hurst, OT

The 2-star starter at right tackle isn't a well-known name, but his experience will be impossible to replace immediately.

The 6'6", 340-pounder has started in 22 career games and appeared in 34 altogether.

He'll anchor the line again this season opposite junior Chris Faulk. If the latter has a brilliant season and decides to bolt early, the Tigers will have a bit of experience to replace on the bookends going in 2013.

They added only one tackle in the 2012 class, and thus have five offers out to offensive tackles for 2013 already (two are committed elsewhere though).

Here at Signed, Sealed, Delivered we'll evaluate players each team must replace every day in one of our many daily features. Be sure to check it out and have your say too—we're all ears.

You can find me talking football and throwing seven different kinds of smoke on Twitter.