DarryIS posted this in the Day3 thread, but it had a paywall, so I did my usual trick to view it (sorry TheAdvocate but thought it was worth massaging the rules a smidge...)
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LSU's Kayshon Boutte was a likely first-round pick. Now, he's an NFL draft mystery.
BY WILSON ALEXANDER | Staff writer Apr 27, 2023
The first time many NFL evaluators noticed Kayshon Boutte, he sliced through Ole Miss in the final game of his freshman year. That chilly, rainy day, he burst for three touchdowns and 308 yards receiving, a Southeastern Conference single-game record.
Boutte looked like the next great LSU wideout on the heels of Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. Then he opened his sophomore season with an explosive 30 receptions, 436 yards and nine touchdowns through five games, making him the favorite for the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver.
Now, Boutte will not get picked in the first round when the 2023 NFL Draft starts Thursday night. He may not go on the second day, either. Once considered an early pick and one of the top players in the class, he is projected to get drafted between the third and fifth rounds.
How did he fall this far?
“It was somebody that when he was younger, you paid attention to him,” said NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah, a former scout for three teams. “He jumped off the tape a little bit and got you excited. I didn't really see him take that next step going forward.”
Over the last few months, NFL eyes divided Boutte’s career into two distinct parts. There was the blistering nine-game stretch between his freshman and sophomore years when he caught 65 passes for 1,036 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Then there was a season-ending ankle injury, and everything that came after: two surgeries, frustration, a public critique from coach Brian Kelly, drops, glimpses of his former self, a disappointing junior season and the strange end to his LSU career.
“I think the problem with that kid is people (were) always trying to find that guy who was a freshman,” said an NFC scout, who was granted anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak publicly. “You never found that guy.”
Evaluators complimented Boutte in some ways. The Athletic analyst Dane Brugler, in his annual draft guide, highlighted Boutte’s acceleration, instincts and vision after the catch. The scout liked his feel for the game. Jeremiah called him a “smooth athlete.”
But their knocks against him illustrated how perceptions of Boutte changed last season, when he recorded 48 catches, 538 yards receiving and two touchdowns with a career-high seven drops.
Jeremiah thought Boutte drifted on routes and wasn’t physical at the catch point. Brugler agreed, writing Boutte “has a bad habit of leaning as a route runner, tipping his break” and needed to get better at contested catches. He said scouts projected a slot-only option at 5-foot-11.
“I can’t say there are dominant traits,” the NFC scout said. “He’s right at the bar in a bunch of things. He’s not an exceptional guy like some of the guys they had in the past. He is an instinctual guy. He has a feel for football. He has a feel for avoiding, understanding zone coverages. At the end of the day, he catches the ball.”
Boutte's career split Oct. 9, 2021, in Lexington, Kentucky. In the fourth quarter of a blowout loss, he suffered a right ankle injury while trying to make a sideline catch. He underwent surgery, then a second operation when the ankle didn’t properly heal. Boutte later admitted he “could have did better” with his rehab.
As Boutte tried to recover, LSU fired coach Ed Orgeron, replacing the staff that had signed him as a five-star recruit and the No. 1 player in Louisiana out of New Iberia. He said the injury sent his mind to a darker place. He thought about transferring, uneasy of new people around him.
“It was a huge transition,” Boutte said at the NFL combine. “Getting used to new coaches, them coming in and saying you could trust them and not really knowing them at all. But I felt like as the season went on, we kind of built that trust and everything played out.”
Though Boutte stayed, in part because of an endorsement deal with local personal injury Gordon McKernan, Kelly challenged him at the start of spring practice to be more engaged while his ankle healed. They got to know each other better, and Kelly complemented Boutte on his approach as he struggled to replicate what he had done before.
“He’s going to end up in a situation where he contributes, and I think he proves himself on a roster,” Kelly said. “I think he’s going to do very well in the NFL. But when you talk about the depth of the draft, there’s a lot of wide receivers. I think that’s going to show itself.”
Before the season, Boutte said there were moments when he still felt scared to plant his foot in certain directions, worried the ankle would fold again. He had to “get comfortable with stepping back, cutting back.”
Boutte brushed off the injury as a factor midseason. He then pointed to it again at the NFL combine.
“It wasn’t like my freshman and sophomore year, but everything happened,” Boutte said. “I tried to be the best I can after my injury, tried to get back, and I wasn’t there yet.”
And: “I feel like it was kind of the injury, getting back used to my ankle. But as the season progressed, it got better.”
The NFC scout thought the ankle injury affected Boutte to an extent. But he said “you still got to showcase yourself in a good way,” and Boutte produced a year defined by inconsistencies.
Frustration marred the beginning of the season when LSU’s offense scuffled. There were eight games with less than 50 yards receiving. Boutte also looked explosive again at times, including on a 53-yard touchdown in the SEC championship.
Two days after the game, Boutte announced Dec. 5 he would return for his senior year, a decision that surprised people throughout the industry and around LSU. Twenty-three days later, he instead declared for the draft.
Boutte would have been suspended for the Citrus Bowl and had not been around the team since the SEC championship, sources said. When LSU announced he was “unavailable” for the bowl, the team said he was enrolled for the spring semester. Boutte turned pro hours later. Brugler wrote that his character would be “deeply scrutinized by NFL teams.”
Over the next four months, Boutte underwhelmed in pre-draft workouts. An elite high school track runner, he confidently said he would run the 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds at the combine. He clocked a 4.50 instead, the 23rd-fastest time among receivers, and struggled in the jumps. Jeremiah thought Boutte ran fast enough, but he had those other issues.
Boutte will likely get selected. All he needs is one team to believe in what he did those nine games, and he could go on to have a productive NFL career. He said at the combine he feels like “nobody can guard me” because of his speed and route running. He still thinks of himself as the best receiver in the draft.
But he won’t go where he was once projected after such a promising beginning to his career.
“The beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Jeremiah said, “and if you get a team that's more attached to what he showed earlier in his career, maybe he goes a little bit higher.”
