Lane Kiffin's LSU Is Repeating His Predecessor's Mistake—Will He Meet the Same Fate?

LSU Is Losing Louisiana's Top Five-Star Recruits to Florida, Alabama, and Even Nebraska, Mirroring the Collapse That Sank Brian Kelly

Is Lane Kiffin Overhyped? | Don't @ Me w/ Dan Dakich

"Look, Kiffin hasn't won anything and that's what's going to follow him. For all the controversy, for all the moves, for all the firings, all the embarrassment, in a way, he's the John Gotti of coaching."

It's probably fair to say that Lane Kiffin's year at LSU isn't exactly going the way most people envisioned when he was hired.

The Tigers gave Kiffin a $93 million contract, giving him one of the most expensive rosters in college football, and six games into his first campaign in the Bayou, Train Lane is 4-2 and staring down the barrel of a College Football Playoff absence if his team takes a brutal back half of the schedule with another loss.

However, even in this day and age of instant roster updates, I tend to give most coaches a pass in their first year at a new school (within reason).

What does a truly successful first year look like for head coach Lane Kiffin at LSU?

Weird highs and lows can happen, and players still need time to adjust to the culture and expectations set by the new staff, so simply removing results on the field can set fans up to hit the out button before enough data has been gathered.

For that reason, I like to pay just as much attention to what happens off the field, and there is one key issue in Kiffin's recruiting strategy that could dictate whether he succeeds in Baton Rouge.

Looking at LSU's 2027 recruiting class as it currently stands, nothing looks too alarming.

The Tigers are ranked 11th in the 247Sports composite rankings, which is really good, though not elite, but with only 16 commitments, there's still plenty of room for growth.

Ranking is not necessarily a problem. The sticking point here is purely geographic.

Just to provide a little background on Louisiana high school football before we continue, The Boot has long been said to be one of the most talent-rich states per capita in the entire country.

Every successful LSU coach in the 21st century, from Nick Saban to Les Miles to Ed Orgeron, has made locking down the Tigers' home state a priority, and the results speak for themselves.

Kiffin is letting Louisiana's talent slip through his hands, and it's not an overreaction to say it could spell doom for him.

Of the top ten prospects in the 2027 recruiting class from Louisiana, according to 247Sports, LSU has four of them.

Not bad, until you realize that of the four five-star prospects, only one is currently committed to the Tigers.

The latest casualty came in the form of Easton Royal, a five-star, all-world wide receiver from literally down the road at Brother Martin High School in New Orleans.

Royal had been committed to Texas for nearly a year, but everyone with inside information believed a flip to the state's Tigers was inevitable.

The flip came last Sunday, but instead of staying in The Boot, the Royals decided to go to The Swamp instead of playing for the Gators.

To make matters worse, Ahmed Hudson, the only five-star recruit from that list committed to LSU, has been heavily favored by Nebraska for several weeks, and a flip to the Huskers appears imminent.

Lane Kiffin knows there are no excuses at LSU. Now comes the test of valuing the price of admission

Losing five in-state stars to Florida (Royal), Alabama (quarterback Elijah Haven) and Notre Dame (quarterback Olbert Simin) hurts but is justified.

Nebraska taking a five-star from the Tigers is a whole different can of worms.

It's not 1996 anymore, and the Huskers are a shell of the dominant program they once were.

Over the summer, I wrote about how Kiffin added former Tigers coach Ed Orgeron to the staff as a way to address the shortcomings of his predecessor, Brian Kelly, but so far, it doesn't seem to have helped.

Kelly famously failed to recruit Louisiana State to the liking of Tiger fans everywhere, which ultimately backfired and landed him on the unemployment line last year.

It's still early, but Kiffin's classes are eerily similar to Kelly's first full class in Baton Rouge, when six of the top ten combined in Louisiana left the friendly confines of The Boot.

Although Kelly's 2024 class somewhat addressed that problem (signing nine of the top ten prospects in the state), it was the only year Kelly acquired a majority of the top homegrown talent.

Coaches like Orgeron have in the past avoided in-state recruiting when it made sense, such as during periods when Louisiana lacked some of the top talent it usually has.

But 2027 is a historic cycle for the state, and Kiffin isn't using a gold mine in his backyard.

Detractors of this theory will say things like "high school recruiting doesn't matter anymore" and "they can just use Portal," but will fail to mention that Kiffin relied heavily on Portal this year to build the bulk of his roster.

Relying on Portal is fickle, and although most recruits are always at risk of flight even after enrolling in school, Louisiana's kids have typically been fiercely loyal to their home state.

Just look at the discourse surrounding LSU and Kiffin's recruiting efforts from Tiger fans and beat writers following the news of the Royals flipping to Florida and Hudson's apparent flirtation with Nebraska.

Recruiting and retaining the best players from The Boot is important to these guys, and if Kiffin can't show improvement on the field, his strap could get a lot tighter simply because he's not doing it LSU's way.

I've said before that Lane Kiffin will be very successful at LSU, and I still believe that.

He is a very talented coach with a lot of resources behind him and he cannot fail.

But if this trend continues, I could very well be wrong

College football is weird as it is, and Kiffin needs to right the ship and lock the boot or he could suffer the fate of being the last man to storm the bay.

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