LSU finishes 2023 cycle with Top 5 recruiting class
National Signing Day has come and gone, which all but puts a bow on the high school recruiting classes for college football teams around the country.
The On3 2023 Consensus Football Team Recruiting Rankings remained largely the same entering Wednesday.
LSU finished with the No. 5 class, holding steady in the top group after both the Early Signing Period in December and the final industry rankings updates in January.
The Tigers signed 25 prospects in the 2023 cycle, up from just 15 high school signees in the 2022 class.
During head coach Brian Kelly’s first signing period a year ago, the Tigers went heavy on transfers (19) and lower on high school signees (15). Kelly said the goal was to quickly patch up a roster that had been depleted in numbers, and the goal in the 2023 class would be to invert that number.
Now, the Tigers are bringing in 25 high school prospects and 11 transfer portal additions, though the number of transfers could continue to grow this offseason. The staff has at least five open scholarship spots remaining ahead of the 2023 season.
LSU going without any high school signees during February’s NSD is no surprise. With the NCAA green-lighting an Early Signing Period beginning with the 2018 class, the number of high school prospects who sign in the first window has grown each year.
Only 2-percent (six recruits) of the On3 Top 300 remained uncommitted entering NSD, and more than 95-percent of the Top 300 recruits had already signed with a college in December.
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And with the recent addition of an NCAA Transfer Portal window from December to January, the number of high school prospects who sign in February has dropped even more. Wednesday marked the first time in LSU program history that football staff didn’t sign any high school players during February’s NSD.
LSU finished inside the Top 5 of the On3 Consensus Football Team Recruiting Rankings for the fourth time in the past five years. The lone time the Tigers didn’t finish inside the Top 5 during that stretch was a year ago when LSU signed just 15 high school prospects.
LSU finished No. 5 in 2019, No. 4 in 2020, No. 5 in 2021, No. 12 in 2022 and, now, No. 5 in 2023.
The Tigers signed a pair of 5-star prospects in offensive tackle Zalance Heard and edge rusher Dashawn Womack. Heard finished as the No. 11 overall prospect in the country, while Womack finished at No. 12.
16 of LSU’s 25 signees are ranked inside the Top 300, while the Tigers pulled in five of the Top 100 prospects in the 2023 cycle.
