Brian Kelly compares LSU transfer portal management to NFL operation

Coming down south for the first time in his career, head coach Brian Kelly has taken some time to settle in with the LSU program. Even so, there has been a lot of roster turnover compared to last season, with Kelly having to hit the transfer portal hard to improve his roster for the upcoming season.

Kelly recently revealed how the Tigers navigate the transfer portal on a day-to-day basis, comparing the process to an NFL operation. He said LSU’s staff for player personnel is huge, especially when it comes to guys from Louisiana. If they left the state during their original recruitment but are looking to come back home, Kelly wants to make sure they have a good report on each of them.

“When you talk about how you set up your entire operation now, your player personnel department has grown exponentially,” Kelly said. “Will Redmond handles that but he now has a large staff that is working in different groups. It looks like an NFL operation now. We have one board that is just for LSU players that are at other Power Five players because if they transfer, we need to know about those guys from the state of Louisiana. So that’s a whole operation in itself, managing the transfer portal.

“As you know, we had to hit the transfer portal but it was incumbent of us to find those young men that wanted to come back to the state of Louisiana. We found six of them that were Power Five players and so when we saw that kind of, rallying back to their state, we said ‘we better be ready but if somebody wants to transfer, we better know all of the Division I players that are playing Power Five football that have a tie to Louisiana.”

NFL teams have always had player personnel departments, scouting other teams from around the league in case somebody becomes available. Kelly is now doing the same in Baton Rouge, knowing he has to be prepared in case somebody enters the transfer portal.

LSU has brought in 15 players via the transfer portal this offseason, with a few originally being from the state of Louisiana. Of course, recruiting the state has been a staple of the Tigers’ program over the years but there’s a new dynamic when it comes to today’s modern college football. Players will always be looking to come home when transferring.