Duce Chestnut Transferring to LSU

Tigers add a top corner from the portal, possibly a second?

LSU took another step toward stocking the cornerback cupboard Sunday evening as the Tigers added yet another player via the transfer portal.

Former Syracuse Orange corner Darian—better known as DUCE—Chestnut announced on his social media he would be transferring to LSU.

Chestnut’s one of the more highly touted players in the portal. On3 for example ranked him as the No. 7 corner (Denver Harris was No. 2 for context) available.

Chestnut wasn’t regarded as a can’t miss prospect coming out of high school, but really blew up his freshman year at Syracuse. Chestnut was a freshman All-American in 2021 and an All-ACC selection in which he intercepted three passes, broke up another 11 and added 43 tackles. This season Chestnut only had one pick and three PBUs (our friends at our Syracuse sister site tell me that teams wised up and didn’t really throw his way this year). Also Max saw him play in person and said “kid’s terrific”, “he’s so good”, and also “guy’s a dog.” Seems good!

But Chestnut might not be the only corner LSU’s adding on Sunday. Ohio State corner JK Johnson was in town this weekend and his current Twitter bio reads “Ohio State —>LSU” so…I mean unless he is literally J/K-ing maybe he’s coming too? Johnson was the No. 3 corner, ranked No. 50 overall, in the 2021 class and was coached in high school by Robert Steeples who of course is LSU’s current corners coach.

For now though let’s say Johnson hasn’t officially committed to the Tigers. LSU’s still done a really good job stocking up at a position of need. In addition to Chestnut, LSU’s brought in Denver Harris (Texas A&M) and Zy Alexander (Southeastern).