When the 2021 season begins, Derek Stingley Jr. will become the latest LSU star to pull on the illustrious No. 7 jersey.
The junior cornerback was announced as the jersey's recipient this offseason, the latest in a string of star Tigers players that has included legendary names like Tyrann Mathieu, Patrick Peterson, and most recently JaCoby Stevens who was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in April's draft.
It's a fraternity that still keeps in touch. Stingley, speaking during an interview at SEC Media Days, shared that he had been in touch with multiple former No. 7s.
Stingley was joined by senior offensive lineman Austin Deculus and coach Ed Orgeron at the Southeastern Conference kickoff event held in Hoover, Alabama.
“I’m very excited," Stingley said, grinning. "It’s something that I’ve always seen as a kid, the hype around it. And what everybody did with the number, that’s what I look forward to doing. I really want to leave my mark.”
Mathieu, now a safety for the Kansas City Chiefs, had a message on leadership that Stingley, a soft-spoken star, shared with the media.
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"I asked him how to be the perfect leader," Stingley said. "And, he [said] there is no perfect way. It’s just however you feel it needs to be, let it be. I’m a quiet guy, so he told me ‘you don’t always have to go out there and scream yell, be this rah rah guy. When you speak, like, people are going to listen.’ And I took that and, you know, I started noticing that whenever I had something to say people would listen, and I didn’t think I had that kind of power at all, like, I just thought I was just a normal guy.”
And finding that leadership stride will be important for Stingley, now a veteran on a talent-laden LSU squad that's rife with new coaches and seeks to bounce back from a difficult 2020 season that needed back-to-back wins to climb back to .500 in the final two weeks.
Stingley, along with the rest of the LSU roster, set the NCAA ablaze in 2019 as the team went unbeaten and won its first title since 2007. As a freshman starter across from now-Tennessee Titan Kristian Fulton, Stingley hauled in six interceptions and All-American honors.
But that hype fell flat in his sophomore season. While battling injuries and trying to learn a new defense, Stingley didn't record an interception along a defense that saw many key players depart for the NFL and struggle to hold down opponents. That eventually resulted in the departure of defensive coordinator Be Pelini after just one season, replaced by former NFL assistant Daronte Jones. Those NFL ties and understanding have seeped into the LSU locker room, and has Stingley optimistic about what this rebuilt defense can do to bounce back before he likely moves on to become a top NFL draft pick, himself.
"Whenever [Jones] introduces something new to us, he breaks it down on an NFL level," Stingley said. "He shows how they did it when he was at the Vikings. He shows clips from that, or he shows clips from the Bengals and stuff like that. And when we see that, we’re like, ‘OK, we can do it, they’re making it look simple.’ So we can go out there and do it, too.”
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