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BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU’s Maason Smith will perhaps be the best defensive tackle in the 2024 NFL Draft should he come out. But he will not play in college football’s biggest game of the early season Sunday night when No. 5 LSU meets No. 8 Florida State (7:30, ABC) in Orlando.
This is because the NCAA suspended Smith for the game for receiving impermissible benefits (cash) from an autograph signing in 2021. The signing with then-teammate Kayshon Boutte happened just weeks before Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) legislation passed in July and August of that year around the country. NIL put it within NCAA rules to receive such benefits.
LSU’s MAASON SMITH SUSPENDED
“I told Maason to look at it this way,” said WWL Radio host Mike Detillier, who grew up and lives near Bayou Lafourche, south of New Orleans like Smith. “You’re going to go down in history as an answer to a trivia question. You’re the last man ever suspended by the NCAA for impermissible benefits.”
That’s basically true since post-NIL, the NCAA has been more like Barney Fife than Buford Pusser.
What If LSU Loses To Florida State Without Maason Smith?
But if LSU (2.5-point favorites) loses to Florida State, LSU fans will always wonder, ‘What if Smith had played?’ But first, they will probably storm the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis with help from the Cajun Navy after they’re finished with Hurricane Idalia relief.
Smith was the No. 1 defensive tackle in the nation coming out of Terrebonne High in Houma in 2021 and one of the top overall prospects in the country. The Football Writers Association of America named him a freshman All-American, and he made the All-SEC freshman team in ’21 after making 19 tackles with four sacks. He tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee in the season opening loss to Florida State last year, and was lost for the season.
He will be a major loss for LSU Sunday, though the Tigers remain talented in the interior line. And LSU has a most feared pass rusher and overall play wrecker in linebacker Harold Perkins. A freshman All-American as well, he made 13 tackles behind the line with 7.5 sacks last season.
Smith Is ‘Best Big Man Athlete From The Bayou’
“Maason Smith (6-foot-6, 315 pounds) is the best big man athlete ever from the bayou,” Detillier said.
That’s big talk. The late, great Eric Andolsek hailed from the Bayou Lafourche area out of Thibodaux and LSU. He became a star left guard with the Detroit Lions from 1988-91.
“Eric was the best offensive lineman from the bayou,” Detillier said. “Maason will be the best defensive lineman from the bayou.”
Had what happened in that autograph session stayed on the bayou, Smith would be playing Sunday. But a snitch outed Smith and Boutte.
Former LSU football coach Ed Orgeron might know what to do on a bayou with that snitch. He is also from the flow of Bayou Lafourche and a town actually called Cut Off. He recruited Smith and Boutte to LSU. Orgeron was LSU’s coach at the time of the clandestine autograph session that wasn’t in 2021.
“I got a nice fishing hole, and my buddies are going to take your fishing this afternoon,” Orgeron told a questioner at the Baton Rouge Rotary Club before the 2018 season. The guy had basically told him he had little chance of beating Miami in the season opener that year, and he was wrong.
Orgeron didn’t like another question that day and said, “We’ve got room for two in that boat.”
He was kidding. Maybe. And I’m sure he could find out who that snitch was. What happens on the bayou should stay on the bayou, but which bayou and which autograph session are we talking about?
Smith did one in Thibodaux in 2021, but that was in August after NIL went into effect. The one he did with Boutte, though, was earlier in the summer closer to Bayou Teche. That’s the one the NCAA investigated after a tip. Boutte is from New Iberia, which is on Bayou Teche near Lafayette.
LSU Didn’t Get To Pick The Suspension Date For Smith
Boutte served his one-game suspension last season in a 38-0 win over New Mexico on Sept. 24. He just made the New England Patriots as a sixth-round pick. The New Mexico game was the first one up by the time the plodding NCAA got tipped off and finished its investigation more than a year later. That’s how it fell. LSU coach Brian Kelly, who replaced Orgeron after the ’21 season, didn’t pick that game.
Smith would have been suspended for the New Mexico game, too, but he was already hurt and out for the season. So his next game up is Sunday. The NCAA picks the suspended games. Contrary to what many misinformed LSU fans think, you can’t just pick the suspended game when the NCAA penalizes you. That happens when individual schools self-impose penalties or discipline.
Michigan, for example, decided to self-suspend coach Jim Harbaugh for the first three games this season (East Carolina, UNLV, Bowling Green) for illegal recruiting during dead periods. Mighty big of you Michigan and good try at wishful enforcement, but the NCAA is likely to suspend him for more in 2024 as it should.
The NCAA was correct to suspend Smith, too. He made a ridiculous mistake by attending and accepting money at the earlier autograph session with such things going legal in just a few weeks. And his stepmother said that to Detillier. Smith also didn’t need the money. He has two sets of parents from a divorce and all are working. His mother is a doctor.
LSU Fans Have Interesting Pro-Maason Smith Arguments
Some fans and LSU media members, some of whom are also fans, have said since Smith missed all of last season anyway, he shouldn’t be suspended for a game this season. Who thinks like this? So, let’s say you are sentenced to 90 days in jail. Then you happen to get hospitalized for 90 days just before your jail term begins. Now, ask the judge if you can use the 90 in the hospital for the 90 in jail. And see what he says.
Other fans and even media members say that Smith should not be suspended because it’s an old rule. Unbelievable. So, if you get caught going 70 in a 55 mph zone, and you know the 55 mph zone will switch to a 70 in a couple of weeks, tell the cop that. And see what he says. Or tell him the speed switches to 70 in a couple of miles. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Blind and delusional fans for former LSU basketball coach Will Wade used the same ridiculous argument. Just because something becomes legal after you do it does not get you out of jail. Because conceivably, far fewer folks were paying players when it was illegal than after it went legal. Therefore, when Wade was cheating like a mad man pre-NIL, he gained an unfair advantage because more at the time were not paying players. This is why Wade is currently McNeese State’s basketball coach.
Oh and LSU and others keep saying, “Well, Maason cooperated with the NCAA.” Uh, you’re supposed to do that anyway. You don’t get less time for being nice to the arresting officers.
Smith Should Have Known Better
Smith is a smart kid. He should’ve known better not to wait a few weeks to earn some cash for his signature.
The real person at fault, though, is whoever put on this impermissible, pre-NIL autograph session in 2021, wherever it was and invited Smith and Boutte. Why not check with LSU’s compliance people first? They would have told you to wait a few weeks. Instead you got a great kid in trouble.
In the end, LSU is not exactly getting the book thrown at it with Smith’s suspension. And it could get the last laugh.
Smith has been bothered by an injured ankle through much of August practices and would not be at 100 percent if he could play against Florida State.
“Probably not,” Kelly said Monday. “I mean he would’ve been in that range, and we weren’t really sure. Probably one of the reasons why you didn’t hear from us because we weren’t really sure where he was.”
Kelly has known for months about Smith’s impending suspension. Behind the scenes, he had been lobbying to get the NCAA to let Smith play against Florida State. He even tried to schedule a rent-a-win game before Florida State so Smith could serve the suspension in that one.
Maason Smith Has Not Been Practicing Fully
“He’s still not practicing,” Kelly said and paused, “at the level he needs to be practicing for us to say that he would be ready. He would probably be questionable for this weekend.”
Oh, so Smith might not have played anyway against Florida State, if he’s questionable. That would’ve been a good thing to keep quiet around the NCAA.
Hopefully, the NCAA won’t decide to delay Smith’s suspension for a big game until it knows he is 100 percent healthy. Hey, Grambling is next on Sept. 9 before the SEC opener at Mississippi State on Sept. 16. Then Smith could have a miraculous recovery just before kickoff on Sunday.
And if NCAA officials would have any more questions about Smith, Kelly will gladly meet you at LSU athletic director Scott Woodward’s fishing camp in Port Fourchon, Louisiana’s southernmost port at the Gulf of Mexico … near Bayou Lafourche.