Why LSU has the makeup of a College Football Playoff contender in 2023

Exactly one team in the entire SEC returns its same head coach, both offensive and defensive coordinators and a quarterback who started every game in 2022. 

Watch out folks, the offseason hype train for Brian Kelly’s LSU Tigers is about to leave the tracks. 

LSU opened spring practice Thursday, and although it’s not a program without questions (how about addressing all those dastardly special teams gaffes), the Tigers do enter the offseason flush with momentum and confidence they can be a legitimate College Football Playoff contender in the fall. 

This time a year ago, everything was new at LSU. The roster had been stripped down to the studs, and Kelly spent much of the spring fixing the foundation of a program that had seen its culture erode and its identity sapped. 

Practice was less about development than simply learning one another.

“We didn’t even know how to practice the right way in terms of tempo and pace and duration and workload,” Kelly said in a recent interview with The Advocate. 

“All of those things, they had no clue in terms of what my expectations were. … All those little things have been laid down in Year One. Now we can get into some of the traditional things that you would expect in spring practice.”

The Tigers still have plenty of new faces needing introductions — there are 37 newcomers on the roster between recruits (25) and transfers (12) — but the program is no longer tilting on a shaky foundation. 

Kelly laid down his expectations last spring, and a year later, LSUs culture is better and a roster riddled with holes has seen most of those spots addressed. The next six months aren’t about reshaping an identity, but rather tweaking around the margins before their marquee matchup with Florida State in the 2023 opener.

Overall team depth, especially at offensive line, remains a concern for Kelly, but LSU — because of what unfolded in 2022 and then the work Kelly & Co., did on the recruiting trail and in the transfer portal — is positioned for a potential Year 2 assent. 

As in, the Bayou Bengals being back in the national title conversation. 

Has Brian Kelly positioned LSU as a CFP contender in 2023?

It’s not outlandish to say that 2022 LSU Tigers will be the worst roster Brian Kelly fields during his tenure in Baton Rouge. And yet, LSU still managed to vastly exceeded expectations — stunning No. 2 Alabama in Death Valley and winning the SEC West. 

The Tigers were a flawed team with inconsistent quarterback play from Jayden Daniels and a defense that lost its best player Maason Smith one series into the season, but they found ways to win at Florida and Auburn. They upset Ole Miss and dismantled Purdue 63-7 in the Citrus Bowl. 

Now the pieces are in place for LSU to do more. 

While rival Alabama will spend the offseason picking a quarterback and introducing two new coordinators, the Tigers should benefit greatly from their continuity. 

They return nearly their whole offense, with Daniels back, as well as the entire starting offensive line — a unit that featured freshmen at both tackle spots in 2022. Top playmakers Malik Nabers (team-high 72 catches and 1,017 yards), Mason Taylor and Brian Thomas Jr. are back, and LSU added Alabama transfer Aaron Anderson from the portal — a dynamic former Top 50 recruit from Louisiana in 2022 who tore his ACL early in his freshman season. 

Kelly has lauded Daniels’ growth and commitment to the team this offseason, and there’s a sentiment around the program that the former Arizona State transfer will be better (particularly as a downfield passer) with a full offseason in Mike Denbrock’s system. 

But if Daniels shows any signs of struggles, the Tigers might have the best backup quarterback in all of college football, too. 

Garrett Nussmeier showed off his howitzer in the blowout loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship, and LSU even rotated Daniels and Nussmeier some in its bowl win. 

Brian Kelly has made it clear that Daniels is LSU’s QB1, but he’s played multiple quarterbacks before at Notre Dame and he’s certainly left open the door to that possibility for the Tigers in 2023 with Nussmeier nipping at Daniels’ heels. 

“Look, the most important thing is when you have two really good quarterbacks, you have to have an open mind. You can’t be close-minded when you’re looking at two elite quarterbacks,” Kelly said after the Citrus Bowl. 

Defensively, LSU should be improved despite losing multiple starters at edge, linebacker and in the secondary. 

Coordinator Matt House did his best to piece together a unit with duct tape and gum in 2022, but Smith will return to the field in the fall and the Tigers might have the most explosive defensive playmaker in the country in sophomore linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. 

The former 5-star led LSU in sacks in 2022 — this despite playing only situationally for the first half of the season. House has a better understanding how to use Perkins now, and it will be fun to see how he gets creative pairing LSU’s phenom with All-Pac 12 linebacker transfer Omar Speights from Oregon State. 

Speights headlined LSU’s defensive haul in the transfer portal this offseason, one of 10 potential impact players the Tigers supplemented to House’s unit. 

Tigers grabbed depth pieces at edge and defensive tackle, while also immediately addressing their most pressing needs at corner.  

LSU brought in five corners to compete for three jobs, and while former 5-star Sage Ryan is still on the roster, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Tigers end up starting three transfers in 2023. 

Former 5-star cornerback recruit Denver Harris from Texas A&M was the most notable addition, and though off-field issues plagued Harris in College Station, talent isn’t a question. LSU also added Syracuse’s Duce Chestnut and Ohio State’s JK Johnson, as well as FCS All-American Zy Alexander, who had nine picks in two seasons at Southeastern Louisiana.

That’s a lot of pieces that need to gel, but that’s what the offseason is for. 

Last summer, I joked that Kelly took a roster of dough and added some sugar and spice. Well, the cake baked faster than anticipated, and now Kelly actually has the right ingredients for LSU to compete for a championship — the very reason he left Notre Dame in the first place. 

In 33 years as a head coach, Brian Kelly has only had one season ever when his team had a worse record from Year 1 to Year 2. It happened in 1992, his second season as the head coach of Grand Valley State (9-3 to 8-3). 

LSU wasn’t supposed to win 10 games in 2022, but it did. The Tigers should be even better in 2023.