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Les Miles invites Ben Simmons to join LSU football team

simmons

(Gatorade/Susan Goldman)

SLG

LSU football coach Les Miles wasn’t shy this week when it came to publicly expressing unique ways to improve his football team. Now that LSU basketball is bringing in one of the best freshmen in the country in 6-foot-9 forward Ben Simmons, Miles jokingly invited the Australian to join the football team for some goal-line packages at wide receiver.

According to a report from Jerit Roser of NOLA.com, Miles has discussed using basketball players on the football field with former Oklahoma State head coach Eddie Sutton before and he’s envisioned Simmons lining up on Saturdays for him as well.

From Roser’s story, Miles talks about Simmons and the potential records he could set:

“What a magnificent player, and I just want you to know, so you know, if he’s interested in taking some snaps for us, he can come over,” Miles said. “I’m very honest. And I can give him a goal-line position where I would throw it to him. All he’s got to prove to me is one thing is that he can catch.

“If he can catch, and certainly we would all predict in this room that he could, he will set the NCAA record for touchdowns. We’ll just send him over there, and when three guys are on him, we’ll run it, OK? When two guys are on him, we’ll throw him the ball.”

It appears unlikely Simmons would ever decide to play football since he’ll likely a top pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, but it would be interesting to see how he performed on the gridiron. With his size, speed, passing ability and vision, Simmons might be best suited to be a quarterback at the college level, although being a jump-ball wideout wouldn’t be a bad way to use him either.