When LSU somewhat abruptly lost offensive analyst Kyle Caskey roughly a week ago to the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, the Tigers did not have long to find a replacement.
They're scheduled to open their season Saturday night at UCLA, which already launched the pivotal fourth year of the Chip Kelly era with 44-10 dismantling of Hawaii on college football's opening weekend.
Sources tell FootballScoop that LSU and coach Ed Orgeron has their next analyst in Mario Acitelli.
Acitelli, currently in his second year as the special teams coordinator and working with tackles and tight ends at Football Championship Subdivision program Elon, is finalizing plans to join the Tigers in an offensive analyst capacity for first-year coordinator Jake Peetz.
A former All-American player at Appalachian State, Acitelli also has Power 5 experience from a pair of stints on Mack Brown's staffs – for three years at Texas as a graduate assistant and in 2019 at North Carolina as an analyst. Acitelli's body of work also includes five years on staff at William & Mary, including time as the special teams coordinator.
Acitelli has a strong connection to new Tigers' quarterbacks coach DJ Mangas, as the two served several years together on staff at William & Mary.
The move for LSU continues an offseason of considerable change in Ed Orgeron's Tigers' football program. LSU has new offensive and defensive coordinators in Peetz and Daronte Jones, respectively, as well as Mangas, offensive line coach (Brad Davis), linebackers coach (Blake Baker) and defensive line coach Andre Carter.
Additionally, the Tigers aggressively upgraded their administrative structure in the football program when they nabbed Austin Thomas away from Baylor to return to LSU as the program's general manager. Thomas has employed a structured, NFL-like model and augmented LSU's recruiting efforts with the hiring of Will Redmond among other moves.