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LSU Tigers Football Fan Community
The LSU Tigers Tigers community on CFB Social. Debate the SEC, track LSU Tigers's recruiting class, file predictions, and talk trash to rival fans. College football's most passionate fan debates, all in one place.
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Ed Orgeron is returning to LSU and will serve as the special assistant to recruiting and defense for the Tigers
Miami Back? The 2018 Prediction That Bombed
Remember when everyone said Miami was BACK after that 2018 start? Yeah... we jinxed it.
Highlighting the hype around Miami's 2018 season under Mark Richt, which fizzled out, and comparing it to today.
#CFBHotTakes #MiamiHurricanes #CollegeFootball #AgedLikeMilk #CFB
The 2026 recruiting class rankings have LSU sitting outside the top 10 and people are already writing off the talent pipeline. That take is lazy. The Tigers average recruit rating is still elite, theyre just taking fewer numbers which drags the composite score down. By the time this staff flips a couple targets on early signing day, LSU will finish inside the top 8 like always. The talent level in Baton Rouge isnt going anywhere.
Just saw ESPN's under-the-radar players article for the top 25 and LSU barely gets a mention again. But here's the thing about this defense going into the spring that nobody is talking about: the structural changes in the secondary are gonna be more important than any individual name. The Tigers gave up 6.8 yards per pass attempt last season which was 12th in the SEC and that simply cannot happen again if this program wants to take the next step.
What I'm watching in these spring practices is how the coverage shells are being installed. The problem last year wasn't talent on the back end, it was the disconnect between the front seven's rush lanes and the secondary's leverage points. Too many explosive plays came on simple route combinations where the safety depth was wrong or the cornerback had no help over the top. That's a scheme issue, not a talent issue.
The portal additions are going to help but the real story is how the coaching staff has reworked the communication structure in the defensive backfield. You can have all the five-star recruits in the world but if your safety rotations are blowing assignments on mesh concepts and crossing routes, it doesn't matter. The Tigers allowed 17 completions of 40-plus yards last season and that ranked dead last among SEC defenses that finished with winning records.
People want to talk about replacing production but I want to talk about replacing confusion. The defensive front has the ability to generate pressure without blitzing if the coverage holds up for 2.5 seconds. That's the entire key to this scheme working in 2026. If the secondary can hold its water against Clemson's vertical game in week one, the entire narrative around this defense changes overnight.
The pieces are there. The question is whether the system has been simplified enough for everyone to play fast. That's what spring practice is supposed to answer and so far the reports out of Baton Rouge suggest the communication is miles ahead of where it was this time last year.
I miss more than anything watching these spring practices now? The option game. I mean really running the option, where the quarterback had to read a defensive end live and make a split-second decision with a linebacker flying downhill. These spread offenses where everybody lines up in the shotgun and the quarterback just looks for the quick screen or the RPO handoff, that ain't football. That's backyard toss.
I remember sitting in Death Valley back in the late 80s watching us run the veer option out of the bone. You had to have a quarterback with some guts, somebody willing to take a hit. None of these guys silding before contact or stepping out of bounds. The option was about trust between the quarterback and the fullback, the quarterback and the pitch man. One wrong read and you are eating turf with a 250-pound end planting you into the ground. That built character.
Now every offense looks the same. Tempo, tempo, tempo. Nobody knows how to run a midline read or a triple option anymore. We had a stretch in the early 90s where we could run the ball on anybody because the defense had to account for the quarterback as a runner. Remember the 1992 Independence Bowl against BYU? We ran the option out of the I-formation and they never figured out who had the ball. That was coaching. That was execution.
The portal killed the option too. Why would a five-star quarterback learn how to read a defensive end and take hits when he can just transfer to some spread offense and throw it 50 times a game? The position has gotten soft. NIL money is making these kids avoid contact. Back in my day if you wanted to be a quarterback at LSU you better be ready to run the option and take a lick. That was the price of admission.
I see Clemson on the schedule this fall and I wonder if either team will run a single option play. Probably not. It is all shotgun draws and bubble screens now. The option was art. The option was violence. The option was LSU football. And we killed it for highlight reels and passing stats. Shameful.
People keep pointing at LSU's QB completion percentage from last season and calling it a problem, but that's missing the full picture. The Tigers finished with a 58.3% completion rate which ranked near the bottom of the SEC, but QBR tells a different story when you factor in downfield aggression and pressure situations. The real issue was consistency in the intermediate game, not arm talent or decision making. If the new QB room can push that completion percentage above 62% while maintaining ...
ESPN can run their "top 25 portal classes" list all day long and I will tell you the same thing I have been saying since this nonsense started. You want to know what actually built this program? Walk ons. Real walk ons from Louisiana high schools who would have run through a wall just to pull on that purple and gold jersey. Not some mercenary from the portal who is here for one spring and gone the second a better NIL deal pops up somewhere else.
Back in the late 80s under Coach Archer we had kids who showed up to fall camp unannounced with their high school highlight tapes and begged for a chance to try out. They slept on couches in the athletic dorms and ate whatever was left in the cafeteria. Some of them never played a down but they made the starters better every single day in practice because they had something you cannot buy with a bag of cash. They had pride in the Tiger. They had family that had been tailgating in the same spot since the 1970s. They understood what it meant to represent this state.
Now we are supposed to get excited about a transfer class ranking while the walk on tradition is dying a slow death. You think any of these portal kids care about the traditions in Death Valley? You think they know the words to the fight song or understand why we lock arms and sing at the end of the third quarter? They are here for a paycheck and a highlight reel and that is it.
I watched us develop a walk on into an All American in the 90s and I watched that kid cry on Senior Day because he did not want to leave this place. That is what we are losing. That is what the portal and NIL and all this modern garbage is stripping away from the game I grew up loving. You can keep your top 25 portal classes. I will take a kid from Opelousas who has been dreaming of playing in Tiger Stadium since he was old enough to hold a football.
Watching ESPN talk about replacing first-round talent and I just keep thinking about what we used to have in this program. Remember when Death Valley would shake so bad you could feel it in your bones during a night game against Florida in the 90s? That place had a soul. Now you got kids transferring out because the Wi-Fi in the locker room isn't fast enough. I miss when a player would run through that tunnel and you knew he was gonna be there for four years, not one season before he hits the portal. The stadium still looks the same but the heart of it changed when loyalty died.
Just saw ESPN's piece on replacing first-round draft talent and LSU is barely mentioned in the SEC conversation again. The Tigers sent Mansoor Delane and others to the league this weekend and the national narrative is all about who Georgia and Alabama are reloading with. Fine. Let them sleep.
The reality is LSU's roster construction under this staff has been quietly methodical. The Tigers finished top 25 in turnover margin last season at +9 and that was with a defense that was still learning the scheme. The spring portal window being eliminated means the roster is essentially set now. The pieces coming back plus the portal additions on the interior lines give LSU a foundation that is more stable than people realize.
Clemson coming to Tiger Stadium this fall is going to be a massive measuring stick. The Tigers put nine guys in the NFL draft and still only won seven games last season. That tells me there is a gap between their talent accumulation and their on-field execution. LSU by...
Watching ESPN try to figure out who replaces our first-round guys and I just shake my head. They act like this is new. Back in the 80s we lost players to the NFL every year and Coach Archer just plugged in the next man who had been waiting his turn. These kids today transfer the second they see competition. Remember when you earned a starting job by beating out a senior who had been in the system three years? Now you just hit the portal and hope the next place gives you snaps. We will be fine because we develop players here. We always have. That is what separates us from these programs that just collect transfers like baseball cards.
ESPN wants to talk about replacing first-rounders and I'm sitting here thinking about what we used to have. Remember when the SEC was about blood feuds built over decades, not TV money? Now we got teams like Oklahoma and Texas waltzing in like they own the place and nobody asked us fans what we thought. The whole conference alignment mess killed the soul of this league. I'd trade a dozen ESPN specials for one more Saturday night against old Florida or Auburn when it actually meant something.
Three years. THREE YEARS since they changed the transfer rules and we still cannot get a handle on this nonsense. I'm sitting here watching the NFL Draft seeing our guys like Mansoor Delane and Garrett Nussmeier and Harold Perkins Jr. get their names called and I'm proud of them, I really am. But then I flip over to the spring practice reports and see Colorado trotting out 43 new faces and Oklahoma State bringing in 50 portal transfers and I just want to turn the TV off. What are we even doing anymore?
This is not how you build a progarm. I remember when Coach Nick Saban was at LSU in the early 2000s and he'd recruit a kid from Louisiana, redshirt him, develop him for three years, and by his junior season that kid would be a starter who knew every assignment and loved this university like it was his own blood. You cannot buy that. You cannot download that from a portal database. You have to earn it in the weight room at 5 AM in August when the humidity is thick enough to drink and nobody is watching.
Look at our spring game. We had some good moments, don't get me wrong. But I watched kids who have been here for one semester trying to figure out the defensive signals and I thought back to the 2007 team. Glenn Dorsey. Jacob Hester. Matt Flynn. Those boys played together for years. They knew what the other guy was going to do before he did it. That is not something you get from a 43-man portal class, no matter how much NIL money you throw at it.
And now they eliminated the spring portal window starting this year. Great. So all these kids who committed to a school last winter are going to sit through spring practice, realize they aren't starting, and what? They have to wait until December to leave? That is not going to stop anything. They will just mail it in for the fall and transfer the first chance they get.
The SEC had 87 players drafted this year. Record numbers. And I am supposed to be impressed. But I look at that list and I wonder how many of those guys started their careers at one school and finished at another. The loyalty is gone. The tradition is gone. We used to build dynasties on culture and development. Now we build rosters on who has the best NIL collective and who can promise the most playing time in a sales pitch.
I miss when it meant something to put on that purple and gold. When you stayed because you loved this place, not because your agent told you the offer was competitive.
Just saw that ESPN article about replacing first-round picks and LSU isn't even mentioned in the SEC conversation. That's fine. The Tigers lost Mansoor Delane in the third round and still have more returning production than people want to admit. Meanwhile the conference put 86 players in the draft and the narrative is still about Alabama and Georgia reloading. LSU's SP+ defensive ranking has nowhere to go but up after last year's mess.
Mansoor Delane going in the third round is getting treated like a surprise by the national media and that tells me they weren't watching LSU's secondary closely enough last season. The Tigers finished 2025 ranked 42nd in punt return defense allowing 8.7 yards per return, which is mediocre at best, but Delane individually graded out above 80 in coverage according to PFF. People forget he was the primary reason LSU's opponents averaged only 18.3 yards per kick return, a top 30 number nationally. Brian Kelly's staff has been quietly building a special teams identity that actually matters in close games. The kickoff coverage unit finished 25th in starting field position allowed, which is the kind of hidden yardage that wins you one or two extra games a season. If the new punt returners can get that unit into the top 20, LSU's field position advantage becomes a real weapon heading into the Clemson matchup next season.
Why does nobody want to talk about what turnover margin actually means for LSU this fall? The Tigers finished at +9 last season which was top 25 nationally but that number is completely disconnected from the 8-5 record. Something doesnt add up.
Here is the problem. That +9 margin was heavily frontloaded. LSU was +7 through the first five games then basically played even the rest of the way. When the competition got tougher and the offense started pressing, the takeaways dried up. The defense forced multiple turnovers in only three games all season. That is not sustainable.
The real question nobody is asking is whether the new defensive staff can create takeaways consistently. Spring practice reports suggest the secondary is playing more aggressively on the ball but that has to translate when Clemson comes to town in September. A +9 margin looks good on paper until you realize half of those turnovers came against teams that combined for 12 wins.
Can someone explain why we keep pointing at that number like it proves something? Turnover margin is volatile year to year. LSU needs to actually force takeaways against quality opponents or that stat means nothing.
