Brian Kelly: LSU has a 'good sense' of who will be available for bowl game

With the transfer portal open and opt outs for the NFL draft likely, LSU head coach Brian Kelly and his staff spent the better part of a week to start the offseason holding player exit interviews. And Kelly said on Tuesday that he’s now got a pretty clear picture of who will and won’t be available.

LSU faces Wisconsin in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Jan. 1. By the time kickoff rolls around, Kelly said, it’ll be clear who the Tigers have on hand.

“Yeah, I think we have a really good sense of the players that will be available for the bowl game. For me to stand here and tell you exactly what those players are, I couldn’t do that. But I would say that we spent most of last week — we spent all of last week doing exit interviews with our players. So, last week was really about our players,” Kelly said.

And with player exit interviews out of the way, the attention turns to the staff.

“This week, we’re really recruiting. And then we’ll get to other evaluations within the staff. Once recruiting goes dead and our coaches responsibilities have completed — they have responsibilities and they have to finish off their responsibilities to LSU — then we’ll do evaluations of staff and so that’s another week away. But, as it relates to our players, we feel like we’re in a pretty good position, relative to who we think is playing and any of that information will come out here in the next week or so,” Kelly said.

Kelly and Co. have pondered some portal additions

was honest about the team’s approach to the transfer portal, especially if the Tigers were to add a quarterback this offseason.

Jayden Daniels, a potential Heisman Trophy winner, is off to the NFL after the season. Garrett Nussmeier, whom the team is high on, is the expected starter next year.

But that wouldn’t necessarily stop a top tier SEC program from improving the most important position.

“Look, I mean, all the questions that you bring up relative to the transfer portal, you answer them as well,” Kelly said. “Like your question had an answer to it, right? Look, this is this is a world that we live in. That’s got to be handled with transparency. If not, you’re gonna find yourself without the right personnel. 

“So if we were to ever do anything in the transfer portal, relative to a quarterback, we’re talking to everybody in that room and we’re talking to recruits, we’re talking to everybody. It is about transparency. It’s about honesty, and it’s about saying, if we’re doing that, here’s why we’re doing it. And then making a decision and doing it.”