Everything Brian Kelly said on National Signing Day

LSU head coach Brian Kelly met with the media on Wednesday to review National Signing Day. Here’s what he said on Five Star Plus+ defensive lineman Dominick McKinley signing with the Tigers and much more.

Opening statement: “I think that’s eight out of the Top 12, 12 of the Top 15 players in the state of Louisiana that we were able to sign in this class. Certainly adding Dominick to this class really tops it off for us. So really excited about his National Letter of Intent this morning. Also, the transfer portal additions that I didn’t talk about back in December. It’s very strategic for me in terms of looking at the portal. We looked at it from a perspective of fit and need, but fit first. As I’ve said to you before, I think for us, we’re going to develop and build this program with high school players and then be very strategic with the portal.

“No coincidence that four out of the six players are from the state of Louisiana and have ties to the state of Louisiana. Two from Baton Rouge out of U-High, two from New Orleans and John Ehret and Warren Easton High School. Then two that are established players from the SEC. One of the things that we needed to do from an offensive perspective is we needed to add some offense back into an offense that lost some prolific weapons and we do that with three players in particular.

“AJ Swann, CJ Daniels, and Zavion Thomas. If you take those three together combined, they bring in 4,200 yards of offense total. You look at, for example, AJ Swann with 22 touchdown passes in 2023. Jayden Daniels had 19 in his first year. You’re bringing in somebody that you feel really good about his ability to generate offense at the quarterback position. CJ Daniels, 1,000 yards in receiving. And so, again, replacing some offense was very, very important strategically. As well as we continue to develop and bring along young players in our program, we needed to do that. And Zavion Thomas, you know, 500 yards in 40 touches. Now you’ve got almost 100 touches with two wide receivers that have experience coming back into your offense. So that was really important to us.

“Defensively, we were looking for somebody that was experienced and that played off the hash. We got that in Jardin Gilbert, safety at Texas A&M, played a lot of football. Twenty five games of football and again, right here from from U-High. Jyaire Brown, who is an experienced player and a starter at Ohio State. And then Austin Ausberry, who you know, obviously from right here, who’s an outstanding athlete.

“We still have some needs. The defensive tackle position is one that we’re still vetting, that we have some needs that we’ll continue to look at moving forward going into the spring. Again, excited about Dominick McKinley and his addition today. And then moving forward, we’ve got a 7-day window here in the signing period, we could have some some other movement here. So again, pretty excited about the closing of this signing day and then certainly the additions that we made in the portal.”

On building through high school players: “Well, I mean we had a huge need last year. There were issues relative to numbers within our program where we had to go into the transfer portal just to fill the roster from a defensive perspective. That’s not sustainable. What’s sustainable is player development, retention, and you do that through building relationships with your players that are here because they want to be at LSU, because again, one of the other important elements is they’re from the state of Louisiana. There’s that allegiance to the flagship school and the university. So there’s many levels and layers to that, but for me, I think the business plan has been all along to pull our base here in the state of Louisiana, develop the high school player, and then by doing so, you develop a relationship and a trust and an allegiance to the young man that’s in your program.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t use the transfer portal. I think you’ve got to be strategic in it and you’ve got to be in it when you need it. I illustrated how we had to use it last year and we used it again this year, and we’ll continue to use it, but I think it’s gonna be development of our players first and foremost through the high school ranks.”

On flipping Dominick McKinley: “When we’re talking about the flip, certainly the coaching change there started it, right? It gave us an opportunity to continue to talk about why we thought that this was the best fit for him. During that time, when there’s a transition, you’re able to build a stronger relationship and trust. And so, a lot of these are built upon that.

“We did not have a consistent situation either at the defensive line position. So, we were fighting against it on both ends. We had to solidify our situation and build some continuity there. The window was opened with the transition at A&M. Then we just became consistent with our ability to get with him and his family and show them why this was the best choice.”

On recruiting guys from Louisiana and border states: “Those are the states that we have targeted relative to our recruiting philosophy. We really focused going into this year of recruiting last year, obviously, that we wanted to be in these particular states to do our base recruiting. Now, as you know, we’ll go anywhere for a quarterback. Quite frankly, we’ll go anywhere for a difference maker, but our base recruiting is gonna be in the border states, Georgia, Florida. That’s kind of where we’re most comfortable and have the best, I think, success rate relative to LSU and where historically recruiting has been best-served. So I think that that’s just really following kind of the historical patterns and then really getting back into those each year.”

On the defensive line position heading into 2024: “Well, I love our young players. I mean, Gabe Reliford, obviously. We talked about McKinley. Certainly, De’Myrion Johnson. I mean, we’ve got young, talented players. Ahmad Breaux. We’re gonna be in a really good situation. We’ve got edge players. That to me is an area that we’re going to have to get more depth in the inside, the interior, in the shade, the 3-technique. We’re going to continue to look at where we can continue to grow there. We’re still recruiting and we’ll continue to do that. We have the spring portal that we’ll address as well. So there aren’t any transfer opportunities within the SEC, but there are opportunities in the spring outside the SEC.

“So, we’re vigilant. We’re on it. We know where we need to continue to build depth and we like the guys we have on campus, so we know where we need to continue to grow.”

On locking down the state of Louisiana: “Well, I mean locking down is a great word to use but I think what has to happen is you got to go out and each coach has to have a geographical area in the state of Louisiana and then a pathway to get to the border states. So everybody has to be involved in the state of Louisiana. You can’t take any geographical area for granted. You’ve got to be all over the state so I think it’s just a commitment to getting out there and working hard. I think our staff did a really good job of getting out there and working hard and doing the due diligence necessary to represent a really strong brand.

“So, I don’t think it’s rocket science. I think it’s really about working hard and building those relationships and not taking anything for granted. Just because we’re LSU, they’re gonna come. You need to recruit. There are guys that did a really good job of recruiting and we need to continue to do that.”

On offensive recruiting because of the season and new additions on staff: “Well, I think we’re seeing it right. I mean clearly this is another Top 10 recruiting class. The next year’s class has gotten off to a great start. So, clearly the success that we’re having and consistency in performance in particular on the offensive side of the ball is resonating. You still have to follow it up with you know intentional, consistent recruiting. From a defensive standpoint, the momentum is picking up, obviously, because there’s great name recognition.

“There’s coaches that are certainly recognizable and they’ve been well-received because these are coaches that have had success and have been successful in recruiting and have had strong relationships. The proof will be down the road, but we’re certainly seeing early indications of higher results as it relates to our defensive staff and the new hires.”

On cross-training defensive linemen from the O-line: “Yeah, there’s no doubt. I think we’ve looked at a couple of guys that we’re going to probably move. I don’t want to announce them right now, but we’re certainly going to move a couple of guys over to the defensive side of the ball to create a more competitive situation for us, especially when we’re talking about O-line going against the defensive line, so we want to create that. I think you’ll be prepared to see some movement there. I’d like to get these guys a little bit more time moving around, and we get into some of our OTA work later in the month, and then we’ll get a chance to see them move, and then we’ll be able to know for sure that they can handle the change in position, but yes, you can expect some movement there.”

On if spring game was scheduled around portal purposefully: “No, no, I mean, we knew the portal situation. This was a matter of just how the spring break dates are. As you know, the Easter and break is a little bit different this year. So, it’s really just counting your calendar and trying to get some practices in before the break so you can extend the calendar longer because you don’t have to count spring break and it just fell that way with the portal opening up on the 15th.”

On locking down the state and impact that idea had on potential hires: “It’s been stated that my goals here are to first and foremost recruit the state of Louisiana so you can imagine that that’s going to be part of the thought process. I can’t tell you it’s the most important thing because we’ve got to stop people, we’ve got to keep the points down, we’ve got to be able to coach and teach and motivate. But certainly that has to be part of the process as well because that’s a stated goal of how we recruit. So, where does it fall on the list of importance? I would probably echo what you said. I think it’s intentional.

“But is it the first thing on the list? Probably not. But it’s definitely something that I would say when we all see those job descriptions, is it mandatory? No. But strongly, I think, worded that you should have experience recruiting in the state of Louisiana.”

On Jardin Gilbert: “Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of confidence in our younger players that are getting more experience. I really do. I think the freshmen that we have coming in are going to compete early in their careers, but there’s nothing like somebody that’s been out there and played in the SEC and knows what it looks like. He was injured last year and never really got off and got into a good place last year, had this shoulder surgery, but the year before he played really well. We know what we’re getting. We’re getting a smart player, committed player, somebody that has experience and it’s hard not to want to gain some experience back there when you have some some inexperience. I will say that the caveat here is the young players that we have are going to be dynamic.

Does recruiting calendar need to change: “I think we’re past lobbying. There’s there’s no more lobbying. I think what has to happen and I think we saw this, the SEC and the Big Ten commissioners got together and said look, we’re going to try to have some form of consensus when it comes to legislation. Some form of consensus when it comes to moving agendas and that will fall now heavily on our next meeting when we get together on the 15th relative to this particular item, which you brought up, and that’s the calendar.

“What can happen is, we get into a room and we have eight opinions. We have to have one voice and we have to move forward with one decision in one voice on how we begin to get hold of a calendar that is, quite frankly, not manageable. What is that gonna look like? I could give you ten different scenarios and ten different people could agree or disagree with them, but something is going to have to change with the calendar or this is just a runaway train that’s gonna end in a bad place.”