Is ‘25 a boom or bust year for our big donors?

Senior QB with a year of starting experience with pretty good stats outsides of the INTs, next year is your best chance in the next three years.

We should be going all in, just like what Ole Piss did last year.

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I think it's playoffs or the door for BK.

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I just don't see any way BK is fired until 2027 at the earliest. Too much buyout. Anything is possible but $51MM in 2025 seems like too much considering we're still paying our last coach.

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I just don't see any way BK is fired until 2027 at the earliest

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He won’t be. The people in this fanbase wanting him fired have no concept of financial reality. If you sign a guy to a 10 year deal, you are in it for the long haul. The roster should keep getting better and more complete each year he’s here.

OM had a 9-3 season because their coach is a total dumbass. You lose three games by 13 points and you passed on numerous field goals in those games. In my opinion, after watching Ole Miss thrash Georgia, I realized they were the most talented team in the country and probably still are. Point I’m trying to make is…the talent was clearly there after what Kiffin did in the portal last year. He’s the one that fricked it up.

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OM had a 9-3 season because their coach is a total dumbass. You lose three games by 13 points and you passed on numerous field goals in those games. In my opinion, after watching Ole Miss thrash Georgia, I realized they were the most talented team in the country and probably still are. Point I’m trying to make is…the talent was clearly there after what Kiffin did in the portal last year. He’s the one that fricked it up.

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Ole Miss losing at home to a HORRIBLE Kentucky team is really hard to believe. Ole Miss had at least top 3 talent I think this season as far as starting lineups go. A really strong defense, a potent offense, etc.

If they made the playoffs, I think they would have a great shot to win it all.

Yeah, making the playoffs is a must next year. Top QB, went out and got play makers, D has was playing better at the end of the year / adding playmakers. I see it being a big deal as long as Nuss stays healthy.

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I think it's playoffs or the door for BK.

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This is one component of it—the most obvious and biggest component by far—but I think he also really really needs to show some progression from the 2024 class (and from what’s left of the 2023 class).


Right now, Kelly’s HS classes look like this:

2022 - obviously a short cycle for him and accordingly a smaller class, and a more top-heavy class. From this class, you had the 4 immediate-impact true freshman starters with will campbell, emery jones, Harold Perkins, and mason Taylor - but zero other guys who contributed in even modest ways. And even with the 4 immediate starters, there really wasn’t a ton of development. Campbell wasn’t all that much better this year than he was by the end of his freshman year, Taylor’s production was largely flat, and Perkins never came particularly close to matching his play as a freshman.


2023 - Of the 26 guys we signed, 18 are no longer with the team, and of the 8 remaining guys, only 3 (Chester/weeks/stamps) have played extensively, 1 of whom (Chester) graded out as one of the worst guys in the country at his position. I’m certainly not saying that this can’t or won’t change—to the contrary: I think Chester should be a lot better now that he has some experience under his belt and will be (presumably) moving to guard, and I expect Tyree Adams will have a good chance to take over as the starting left tackle (and to do it well), and I think Parker, toviano, Kaleb Jackson, and Paul mubenga have all flashed enough talent to suggest they’re capable of making legitimate contributions—but I do think that BK kinda NEEDS it to change. If next season it turns out that Chester struggles just as badly at guard, and Adams can’t handle playing tackle in the SEC, and Parker/toviano/jackson/mubenga wind up playing only sparingly or playing but struggling, then all of a sudden you’re looking at two consecutive HS recruiting classes where you got little to no development. Yes, those classes included a few guys who didn’t really NEED to develop much—Campbell, jones, Perkins, and weeks all being key contributors from basically the very moment they started getting regular snaps—but first of all that’s only **4 guys** in 2 years, and second of all it would leave Ashton stamps as essentially the only good player who wasn’t already good the first time he got on the field. Even if you consistently crush it in the portal (which, as we’ve seen, is very hard to do), you simply cannot build a perennial playoff contender with that level of development. Hell, it’s hard to build even a one-time playoff team that way.



Which brings us to 2024 - I genuinely believe that this class has the potential to be truly special: Durham, McKinley, and green all have the potential to be legitimate stars, and I think it’s likely that PJ Woodland, Dashawn spears, davhon keys, and Gabe reliford will be average or better SEC starters, with jujuan johnson and Ahmad breaux also finding ways to become real contributors, in addition to the OL class (which we obviously haven’t seen yet) producing at least a couple good players as well. But as of now, for everyone besides Caden Durham and Ahmad breaux, this is basically pure conjecture and gut feel based on limited snaps and practice reports. With that many guys we really really like but haven’t seen a ton from yet, it makes this a make-or-break developmental year for the 2024 class just as much as the 2023 class. Year 2 is when your true studs typically reveal themselves as studs… so if this class is what everyone (myself included) seems to think it is, we should (and need to) see a massive year from them in 2025.


The bottom line is this: Even with our huge portal haul, our 2025 season is going to depend to a huge degree on guys we’ve seen very little or nothing from to this point in their LSU tenures. If we get another year of development that’s similarly stagnant to recent years, I don’t think there’s much chance of BK coming out unscathed - but on the flip side, if it goes the way people in and around the program seem to expect, then this upcoming season could/should be the first major step in our next sustained run of excellence