NATCHEZ — After a week of settling into life as a Louisiana State University football player, Devin Voorhies said it is exactly what he expected so far.

Voorhies, a former Wilkinson County High School standout, signed to play safety for LSU on February 5, and has since been training extensively to be ready for the demanding level of intensity the Tigers expect when he touched down in Baton Rouge.

Prior to becoming a Tiger, Voorhies was named the 2013 Gatorade Mississippi Player of the Year as a quarterback/ safety, throwing for 2,374 yards for 25 touchdowns while completing 138 of 221 passes.

Voorhies also rushed for 2,027 yards with 15 touchdowns on 187 carries. As a safety, he recorded 67 tackles, two sacks, two interceptions, two fumble recoveries and one forced fumble.

But Voorhies said it didn’t take long to see that LSU was an entirely different ball game than Class 3A high school football.

“It’s a big difference,” Voorhies said. “It’s much harder work and a lot more you have to put into it. (The coaches) didn’t overwhelm us to soon and introduced us into the system. Mainly, making sure we had the basics right.”

Voorhies said he is happy to be able to focus his energy on just one position, instead of quarterback and safety like he had to with the Wildcats.

“It takes a lot of pressure off, because I don’t have know everything I had to know in high school,” Voorhies said.

Learning the Tigers’ defense is his first priority, Voorhies said, and next is gaining more strength and weight in order to be competitive on the SEC level.

“There are just different schemes that you have to learn and the way they run it is different compared to high school,” he said.

Voorhies left Wilkinson County as a 6-foot-2, 197-pound player.

The Tigers are currently hosting individual workouts, which Voorhies said he is steadily trying to make a name for himself early being mixed in with the nation’s second best recruiting class of 2014, according to ESPN.

“The competition (in the 2014 class) is stiff, and the older guys know the system and we’re just coming in and learning the system,” Voorhies said.

Voorhies said he has had several talks with LSU defensive backs coach Corey Raymond about what is expected of him and his class in the fall, and what they must do to have a successful season.

“First we have to win in practice day by day, and when we step on to the field, everything we did in practice has to pay off for us to be successful,” Voorhies said,

The Tigers’ first game is August 30 against Wisconsin.