Brian Kelly speaks on recruiting at LSU at SEC Media Day
Brian Kelly’s top priority over the past six months has been on the recruiting trail, building the 2024 and 2025 classes. LSU saw first hand in the SEC Championship game what it looked like to have several top five recruiting classes stacked on top of one another, as Georgia went on to win the national title.
At SEC Media Day on Monday, Kelly was asked about closing that gap with Georgia and he made it abundantly clear that it starts with recruiting. The transfer portal has helped LSU get competitive quickly in the midst of a rebuild, but the longevity of the program relies on multiple talented recruiting classes.
The recruiting cycle has continued to spiral out of control, putting coaches in position to be recruiting seemingly every day of the year. It was the primary point of Kelly’s contention on Monday as he took a handful of recruiting questions.
“The calendar has changed so dramatically that it’s making it a year around proposition,” Kelly said, “We hosted official visits through the month of June and that had never been the case. We’re doing 44 out of the 52 weeks now that are seven day weeks now in terms of our schedule. Ten years ago we were somewhere in the 36 range. The schedule with recruiting has changed so much that it’s forced so much more of a commitment in your time. The month of June now is a balancing act between camps and recruiting.”
What makes LSU stand out
For LSU, that month of June yielded five commits for the 2024 class putting the total commitments at 18 for the cycle. Three of those five were from Louisiana and four of the five camped at LSU in the month of June. Of the top ten players in the state, LSU currently has seven commitments and is in contention for the other three.
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In total, 12 of the 18 commits in the class are from Louisiana.
“What’s unique about Louisiana and LSU is the players in state,” Kelly said. “ First of all, there are great players in state and we have to identify them all and recruit them well, but if we do that, then they’ll come to LSU. Other schools I’ve been to, Notre Dame in particular, I had to go to a state and pull the best player out of that state. That’s a lot harder than coming to Louisiana and being the flagship university and if you recruit that man the right way, he wants to be a Tiger.”
The success on the field was obviously a focal point in every interview, but Kelly was able to take a question about beating Alabama and turn it to show how LSU uses year one success on the recruiting trail.
As the Tigers continue to gain their footing in the upper echelon of the SEC, Kelly is confident that those recruiting classes will continue to build on one another. Now that he’s proven himself in the SEC, it’s about acquiring talent to compete for a national title every year.
“From a tangible standpoint, it helps us in recruiting that we don’t have to paint a narrative that’s not true,” Kelly said. “We say ‘We’re going to compete with Alabama. We’re going to be able to beat Alabama.’ It’s not a fantasy, it’s a reality. There’s some tangible evidence you can use in recruiting.”
