Why Brian Kelly wants to build LSU's roster though high school recruiting

In a college football world where the transfer portal is beginning to take precedent over high school recruiting, LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly thinks the key to a successful program is still building through the high school ranks.

Kelly has been a head coach at the college football level for over 30 years now and he began coaching well before the transfer portal was even invented. His philosophy for building a program has always been recruiting high school players, and he has no intention of changing his ideology at LSU.

"As I've said to you before, for us, we're going to develop and build this program with high school players and then be very strategic with the portal."

Brian Kelly

Now, that may seem hypocritical because we saw LSU dip into the transfer portal a lot in 2021 and 2022, but that was because they physically couldn't field a roster if they didn't bring in a boat load of transfers.

Kelly knows that relying on 15+ transfers a year isn't sustainable, what's sustainable is continually building through high school recruits.

Transfers don't typically care about the school they go to, they just want to find a place they can play right away, and in some cases, earn as much cash as they can. On the other side, most high school recruits commit to a school and/or coach they want to spend their next three-four years with as they develop as a player.

Kelly talked about the importance of building the roster with high school players who are here because they want to play for and represent LSU:

"We had a huge need last year. There were issues with numbers within our program where we had to go into the transfer portal just to field a roster from a defensive perspective. That's not sustainable. What's sustainable is player development and retention, and you do that through building relationships with your players that are here because they want to be at LSU. Again, one of the other important elements is that they're from the state of Louisiana, that allegiance to the flagship school and the university. There's many levels and layers to that, but for me, I think the business plan all along has been to build our base here in the state of Louisiana, develop the high school player and then, by doing so, you develop a relationship, 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 have to be strategic about it and you have to be in it when you need it...I think it's going to be development of our players first and foremost through the high school ranks."

Brian Kelly

If you follow LSU recruiting closely, you've probably noticed that a vast majority of LSU's recruits either come from Louisiana or the states that surround the boot.

This is all by design. Kelly says that Louisiana and the "border states" (I put quotation marks because that includes Florida and Georgia which don't border Louisiana) are areas they target because they've found the most success there. They're willing to go far away for a quarterback (e.g. Bryce Underwood, Michigan) or a difference maker (e.g. Da'Shawn Womack, Maryland), but their base is in Louisiana and the bordering states.

"[The border states] are the states that we've targeted relative to our recruiting philosophy. We really focused going into this year of recruiting that we wanted to be in these particular states to do our base recruiting. As you know, we'll go anywhere for a quarterback, and quite frankly we'll go anywhere for a difference maker. But our base recruiting is going to be in the border states. That's where we're the most comfortable and I think have the most success rate relative to LSU and where historically recruiting has been best served."

Brian Kelly

So far, Brian Kelly has done a great job of "locking down" the state of Louisiana. In 2024, the Tigers landed nine of Rivals' top-10 recruits in the boot, and in 2025, they've already secured commitments from the top four in-state recruits, with numbers 5-8 and 10 all undecided (Corey Amos, the No. 9 player in the state, committed to Ole Miss on February 3rd).

Kelly says the reason they've been able to find so much success recruiting in-state is because of the hard work his staff puts in. They can't take any area of the state for granted and will do whatever it takes to keep these kids at home.

"Locking down is a great word to use, but what has to happen is each coach needs to have a geographical area within the state of Louisiana, and then, a pathway to get to the border states. Everyone has to be involved in the state of Louisiana and you can't take any geographical area for granted. You've got to be all over the state. I think it's just a commitment to getting out there and working hard and I think our staff did a good job of getting out there and working hard and doing the due diligence necessary to represent a really strong brand. Don't think it's rocket science, I think it's really about working hard and building those relationships."

Brain Kelly

Recruiting through the high school ranks will, and always has been Brian Kelly's business model. He did it at Grand Valley State, he did it at Central Michigan, he did it at Cincinnati, he did it at Notre Dame, and he's doing it again at LSU.

He's always been a great recruiter, but now that he's at LSU, he has the tools and talent pool to build this program back up through the high school ranks.