LOOK: Brian Kelly welcomes trio of LSU legends to practice
As Brian Kelly continues building support from LSU alumni and former stars, he opens spring practice with his sights set on the 2022 season. Showing off how he has built relationships with former players since moving from Notre Dame to the SEC this offseason, he posted a picture with three LSU legends on Tuesday.
Former LSU stars as well as former Kansas City Chiefs teammates Tyrann Mathieu and Clyde Edwards-Helaire both attended practice with former Tigers star Thaddeus Moss, who is also the son of former NFL star Randy Moss. The group took time to pose with Brian Kelly and show support as former LSU stars watched the new era unfold.
All three had their fair share of classic LSU moments over their careers and hope to watch many more stars come out of their alma mater under Brian Kelly’s guidance as head coach.
Brian Kelly builds roster
The LSU Tigers are in the midst of their spring practices with a lot of new faces this year, and one of them is new Tigers head coach Brian Kelly. Kelly has been hard at work rebuilding LSU’s roster in such a short time, using the transfer portal, and increasing the number of scholarship players.
“As I said, you know, on January fourth we had 39 scholarship players, 39. On August 4th, when we report our first day, we’re going to get to 84. We might not get to 85, but we’re going to be at 84. So we’ll get the roster back to where it needs to be in very short order. You know, mid-years, as you know, we took 17; that is not how I will build a program here at LSU year and a year out. But we needed to address that gap that I just mentioned to you,” said Kelly.
For Kelly and LSU, the biggest thing is to field a team that will be competitive and arguably the most Dominic conference in college football, the SEC. As the Tigers head coach continues, he explains the importance of getting to that magic number of 84.
“For us to get to 84, you know this isn’t AAA. This is the SEC. So you better have a full roster of really good football players when you show up. You can’t have 72 scholarship players or the guys running down on the field they’re not going to be SEC players. So, we had to address it. We did, we’ve got within there a number of guys. 10 in particular from the state of Louisiana that are either high school or mid year transfers that love the state.”