Todd McShay reacts to NIL investment by LSU, potential to win SEC

LSU enters Year Four under head coach Brian Kelly with national championship-or-bust expectations, as the Tigers seek the program’s return to the College Football Playoff for the first time since winning it all in 2019. Suffice it to say, it’s been a long five years for fans in Baton Rouge.

That championship appetite led Kelly and company to dive head-first into the NCAA Transfer Portal this past offseason, supplementing an already-talented LSU roster with the nation’s second-ranked transfer class, according to the On3 | Rivals Team Transfer Portal Rankings. That included adding four-star SEC receivers Nic Anderson and Barion Brown, from Oklahoma and Kentucky, respectively, as well as four-star EDGEs Patrick Payton from Florida State and Jack Pyburn from Florida among the Tigers’ 18 transfer newcomers.

It’s LSU’s overwhelming NIL commitment to improving its roster this offseason that has longtime NFL Draft expert Todd McShay believing 2025 might just be the Tigers’ year. Of course, that starts with Kelly, who is 29-11 overall and 17-7 in SEC play over his first three years in Baton Rouge but hasn’t managed to break through the 10-win plateau yet.

“The Tigers allocated more NIL funds, is what I’ve read, to this portal cycle than any other program in the country. … But essentially LSU and Texas Tech are the two programs that just … opened it up,” McShay said during Monday’s episode of The McShay Show on YouTube. “LSU always has edge rushers, they haven’t developed the guys they wanted, apparently, so they brought in two guys (Payton and Pyburn) to make sure they always have edge rushers. And they’ve brought in weapons for Nuss(meier). Now, can Brian Kelly do what Lane Kiffin couldn’t do (at Ole Miss) and make it all gel, to a national championship level? Lane did it, they were a damn good football team, they just couldn’t take that next step. So, it’ll be fascinating to see.”

Whether or not the Tigers finally break through and secure a Playoff bid this season will undoubtedly rest on the shoulders of senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who bypassed the 2025 NFL Draft after a breakout 4,000-yard and 29-touchdown season in 2024. Of course, that championship plan appeared to hit a bit of a snag last week when reports of a preseason knee injury sent shockwaves through Baton Rouge. Kelly later clarified the situation, downplaying Nussmeier’s injury as a “(pissed off) patella tendon.”

Still, that injury raised a pre-existing red flag for McShay, who saw serious wear-and-tear impacting Nussmeier’s play late last season. Which is why McShay, for one, believes LSU’s ability to run the football, and thus taking pressure off Nussmeier to do it all offensively, will be the single determining factor whether the Tigers finally break through in Year Four under Kelly.

“And now, Nuss – the reports are that Garrett Nussmeier and this patella tendinitis in his knee – they call it a 1.5 out of 10. It’s nothing to see here, right? But I told you last year, it was unique to me because I don’t always see from a quarterback that the season wore on the quarterback and (Nussmeier) didn’t have the same twitch and urgency,” McShay continued. “Mentally, he did, but physically, with his body, it was too much on him. They gotta run the football this year. That’s the No. 1 thing. … If they can’t run the football significantly better than last year, it’s gonna end with disappointment.

“These are the programs that think they solved all their issues and threw a lot of money at it, now it’s kind of on the coaching staff to make it all work.”