Brian Kelly Talks About LSU's New Transfers & Their Connection To The State

During Wednesday's press conference at LSU, head coach Brian Kelly was asked about the recent additions from the transfer portal and how he balanced roster management between high school signees and transfers.

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"It started with immediate needs versus player development," Kelly said. "We're going to take the field against Florida State and we need to have a roster that allowed us to compete right away. The 13 transfers represent filling immediate needs that either was through graduation, attrition, or injuries."

"The 15 high school signees are just from the normal turnover through graduation and moving on to the NFL. That really dictated how we moved forward between the 15 (transfers) and 13 (recruits).

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Kelly also talked about the type of transfers he was looking for and said it wasn't an accident that so many of the new transfers are from the state of Louisiana.

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"We were looking for guys who had a connection to the state of Louisiana. It wasn't an accident that a lot of these guys were from the state and wanted to come back and play for LSU. For whatever reason, they didn't end up playing football here but wanted to be here."

"We were looking to take guys of high character that were good students. We weren't taking guys that were not above the line so to speak, for us. We were looking for guys that were going to impact the culture of our team in a positive way, right away."

"One of the criteria... if they could be from Louisiana... that would be a big plus for us."

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