re: Big Will #7

quote:

---

For a program that has tried so hard for years to build a national brand, how does tying 7 to Louisiana roots make sense?

---

There’s been a lot of talk in recent years on locking down the state of Louisiana. It’s important to be able to recruit nationally but it’s just as important to be able to keep the top Louisiana players here. We have a built-in advantage between the amount of talent LA produces and the lack of a competitive in-state rival. Additionally, recruiting LA players is less travel-intensive so pulling the bulk of the class from LA frees up more time for the staff to focus their efforts on specific key players nationally.

There’s also the NIL factor now, which can create unique opportunities for local players (think home town businesses signing an NIL deal with a guy who stays in the state).

I think a lot of folks believe the pendulum swung too far toward national recruiting under Les, and that we wasted too much recruiting capital going after national guys who signed elsewhere while letting top LA talent get poached.

Ironically, I think Les generally did a pretty good job of keeping top players at home in his later years (5-for-5 notwithstanding) while Orgeron, who talked about putting a fence around LA, actually lost a lot of LA talent to rival programs. From 2017-2021 we saw 24 top-10 LA players (almost 50%) go elsewhere.

Regardless it’s clearly a priority for CBK moving forward and I think it makes sense.

As an aside - I would love to see how our retention of LA players correlates to Frank Wilson’s presence on (or absence from) LSU’s staff.