BATON ROUGE — Outside of senior defensive tackle Jacobian Guillory and defensive end Sai'vion Jones, the LSU football defensive line in 2024 will feature plenty of names that many fans will have to spend the first couple of weeks of the season memorizing.

And No. 12 LSU's new defensive line will be tested out of the gate when it lines up across No. 23 USC and its offense in the 2024 season opener in Las Vegas at the Vegas Kickoff Classic on Sunday (6:30 p.m. CT, ABC).

Guillory and Jones are the only two returning starters from a unit the coaching staff knew following the end of last season and at the end of spring practice that they needed to bolster as best they could through the transfer portal. There were a few players they targeted but missed on before landing Grand Valley State transfer Jay'viar Suggs.

The Tigers D-line is a group that features 10 total first-year players within LSU's football program, a couple of junior college transfers, a handful of seniors and more guys that haven't played a snap in purple and gold.

"You got to go test yourself against somebody else," LSU coach Brian Kelly told reporters Monday at his weekly news conference. "We'll come back here in a week and be able to answer a lot of questions about where we're at. I know going in, we're prepared."

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LSU hasn't released a game depth chart for the matchup with the Trojans yet but Wisconsin graduate transfer Gio Paez is expected to start alongside Guillory at tackle. Seniors Bradyn Swinson and Jones project to be the starters at defensive end.

With plenty of new names and youth heading into the season opener against USC, Kelly said the defensive line doing its job would constitute a successful Game 1 for the group.

"This isn't that hard. If we have our guys up front just do their job, they're physically strong enough to do their job. I think (LSU defensive line coach) Bo Davis has done a really good job on just focusing in on the technical pieces that they need to accomplish," Kelly said. "If you're a shade, play shade. If you're a three, play a three.

"I think we're talented at linebacker. Think we're talented off the edges. I think we're talented that we can get to our spots, we just need to do our job up front. If we do that, and we're one-eleventh of our defense with our (defensive) tackles in particular, we're going to be fine. Trying to do things that are not in the scope of what you're job description is."

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Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz atbdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Brian Kelly on what he wants to see from LSU football D-line vs. USC