Brian Kelly addresses having to continue rebuilding cornerback room through portal

LSU is one of a few programs in college football that can lay claim to the title of DBU. But lately, the secondary has not been the shining star of the Tigers’ defense like in years past.

With the college football transfer portal a big player in today’s game and how you get talent on your roster, teams are consistently looking for players to help out in every which way. And LSU is no exception to that rule. During a recent interview with a local news station, Tigers’ head coach Brian Kelly addressed the Tigers’ issue of continuing to rebuild the cornerback room through the portal and what he’s doing to combat it.

“We’re still kind of dealing with that because of the portal. Everybody is kind of in flux. I’m kind of surprised in a sense because we’re looking at the portal right now and doing some visits,” said Kelly. “And these young men have visits at Alabama and Georgia and some of the top programs. They’ve been added a little bit longer than we have. And so it surprises me a little bit that there is that lack of depth. But to go to your point, what’s happening is these kids are jumping in because they want to go start somewhere.”

Despite the exodus of players when Kelly took over the program after National Championship-winning head coach Ed Orgeron parted ways with the program, LSU still had a number of secondary players make it to the next level. And that is something that Kelly wants to continue to build on for seasons to come, as he explained.

“So we’re going to keep recruiting freshmen and develop it that way. But, I think if you look at what happened at this draft, for example. If you take Jarrick Bernard-Converse and you take what happened with Mekhi (Garner) as a free agent and Colby (Richardson) as a free agent, and then even Jay Ward now, looking to be a corner. That’s four guys that were on this roster last year that we developed to the point where NFL people said, we want them in our camp. So I think we’re starting to develop that relationship again with the recruits that, hey, I wanna go to LSU because they’re gonna develop me at a point where I can go to the next level.

With the chance for portal playing a huge role in college football as of late, it can be difficult for programs to hang on to top talent looking to get on the field either early or often. But if Kelly continues with his straightforward approach with recruits and players, LSU might find itself as a favorite destination for both transfer portal players and high school recruits.