Brian Kelly reveals unique way LSU is approaching transfer portal, targeting players from Louisiana

After leaving Notre Dame, Brian Kelly had to add some pieces to the roster at LSU and turned to the transfer portal to do so. During an appearance on Off the Bench on SiriusXM, he explained his approach to the portal in the ever-changing landscape.

The Tigers brought in 15 players via the portal this offseason, and five of them are from Louisiana, including Jarrick Bernard-Converse, the No. 15 player to hit the portal this year, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings. In addition, LSU offered at least three of them a scholarship out of high school, and Kyren Lacy started his career at Louisiana under Billy Napier.

If you’re sensing a theme, that’s the point. Kelly said a Louisiana connection is an essential part of his approach to landing transfers.

“As you know, the transfer portal has kind of taken on a new life of its own where it becomes much more like an NFL model in terms of player personnel,” Kelly said. “That actually falls now under our personnel department. We have a board that has every player from the state of Louisiana that’s on scholarship at every SEC school and every Power 5 school. We want to know about the guys that are from Louisiana that did not go to LSU or we didn’t offer them. That’s much like an NFL operation now.

“I think if you look at it, our guys that we took in the transfer portal had a connection to Louisiana. They had a passion for wanting to be back in the state. For some reason, didn’t get offered by LSU. Maybe they were a late bloomer, maybe they got overlooked, didn’t fit a positional need, whatever. There’s a number of different reasons why, right? But I wanted that connection.”

Brian Kelly on the transfer portal: ‘You don’t want to build your roster on transfers’

Despite adding some big names from the portal this year, Kelly said that’s likely not going to be the plan going forward. This year was different because of the coaching change, which is why the Tigers had to pull from the portal a little more than Kelly might’ve liked.

“The transfer portal, you have to be really deliberate [and] intentional in terms of using it,” Kelly said. “Look, you don’t want to build your roster on transfers. You want to develop your players as freshmen and build the standards within your program.

“We were in a very difficult players with 39 players … and we had to tap into it, but we have to do it wisely. So I go back to if we’re going to go into the portal, I’d much prefer to go back into it with a connection to the state of Louisiana.”