re: Harold Perkins interview at UA all american practice

My point is the players or families aren't asking for money right off the bat like a harold perkins.

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That monster to the east seems to do it quite well.

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They do it by creating a culture that shifts guys away from that mindset. Or at the very least, it convinces them that the process-oriented approach there is the best path to future success and real money at the next level.

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If y’all get what you want and LSU just recruits the “hard working high character” 3 and 4 star kids, y’all same jackasses will be on here whining about how bad LSU is, Brian Kelly sucks as a recruiter, and how much we’ve fallen behind these other schools in a couple years.

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This is just reductionist, binary thinking. It’s not an either/or issue, but the balance and priorities in recruiting at LSU need to be recalibrated. Anyone paying attention should be able to see that. The star-gazing for the sake of rankings while passing on some good players who wanted to be here isn’t working. The culture built on just getting guys to the league doesn’t create sustainable success. We have an entire fricking decade of evidence over two different staffs to tell us this.

We need some more guys who will stick for 3-4 years and create quality depth than we’ve had for the last decade. That doesn’t mean you only recruit 3 and low 4 stars, but it absolutely means you target a few of the right ones who fit your needs and what you are building. Do you suggest that we start passing on guys like Bech, who was one of our most impactful and productive players this year as a true freshman, to exclusively chase 5 star arse and wave stacks like ATM? Do you really think what they are doing this year is sustainable in any way?

As for one of your other comments, you’re fricking right we should prioritize high 4 and 5 star guys who are high character leaders. No team can build an entire class of them, but every class going forward needs SOME of them as it’s backbone. We need 2-5 guys like Howard and Campbell in EVERY CLASS, no matter what. If our recruiters aren’t thinking about identifying future team leaders while they are recruiting, then they are failing at their jobs.

You don’t have to look far for examples. Have you not seen how few on-field upperclassmen leaders we’ve had the last two years? Do you not understand how that’s at least partially a failure of recruiting to not identity some players who have the makings of becoming future team leaders? Can you not see how Bama continually restocks not just top talent, but also leadership? They also do an amazing job of developing those qualities once guys are in the program, which Miles was at least decent to good at during his tenure. O completely failed at this over his last two seasons and we saw the results all over the field. That has to be addressed and it 100% starts with recruiting.

As for Perkins, all of this is really just guessing games and reading tea leaves. Maybe the staff doesn’t like his mentality. Maybe they just know he’s gone or such a remote shot that they’ve moved on to guys they know they can get. Maybe the lack of communication is purely because the DC is coming from the NFL and not already on board. We don’t know. No one outside of the staff knows.

We won’t really know how this staff thinks about recruiting and prioritizes players until next cycle. I know that’s driving some of you crazy, but it’s just how it Is.

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Kelly makes high character kids a priority. He’s done it everywhere he’s been

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that's how he's won all those national championships

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Someone else can deal with Arik Gilbert, Eli Ricks,

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yeah, those coaches that deal with these guys never win anything

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I'm totally fine if we focus our resources on retaining existing players and getting young guys out of the portal. A huge benefit of getting a sophomore or RS freshman out of the portal is that they'd have to sit a year if they transfer again, so it's unlikely you'll have to play the annual "this guy isn't happy and we gotta keep him" dance.

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It’s a balancing act to be sure, but I think the fact that it’s a one time transfer really changes things from a recruiting strategy standpoint.

To your point, those RS FR and SO recruits are much less likely to transfer again, so in theory you’d want to prioritize HS players who are low-risk to transfer and players in the portal with 3+ years of eligibility.

That being said, the fact that you get extra initial counters for some number (7?) of lost transfers mitigates this to some extent as well. You can afford to take some risks on highly talented guys knowing that if they do leave, you’ll have an opportunity to replace their scholarships.

The optimal strategy might vary by position group and year-to-year roster needs. At positions like OL where experience and knowledge of the system are (arguably) more important than raw talent, I think you’d want to focus on high character guys who you can develop over 3-4 years. But maybe you go all in on a “high risk/high reward” prospect at, say, OT if you’re flush at the position and can afford to lose him to the portal.

A position like WR or CB where raw talent > experience might be the opposite - go get the best guys you can find knowing that if they transfer out, you can probably plug someone in from the portal.

Ultimately I think you still want to minimize the attrition from your HS classes though. All other things being equal, I’d rather sign 25 every year without losing anyone to the portal than sign 32 and lose 7 every year.

And this is why CBK will only last 5 years at LSU.

Any chance at Perkins went out the window when Baker was not retained. Perkins will be at Aggy next year

After that interview I’d rather not have him.

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Y’all are incredibly stupid. We will get left behind if we go after the “intellectual and hard working players”.

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I would rather keep investing my time and money into kids that want to bust their arse for LSU and go 8-4 or 9-3 every year than roll the dice on rent to own prima donnas