re: If Louisiana s best stayed in State

Nope, we aren't Georgia, Florida, California, or Texas. Even with the best in Louisiana, we'd have to hope to get some great OL and QB prospects outside of Louisiana and some years the LB crop is very weak. I have yet to see LSU develop a QB straight from high school since following them for the last 13 years. Let's face it, there are no QBs from Louisiana that come straight from high school that don't need much prep. Every QB from Louisiana, even the successful ones, needed a lot of development. That's why I never understood the pro style approach to our offense. We're surrounded by spread QBs and offenses, this isn't the north.

Now we need to do a better job locking up the state, but we need that recruiting reach to get the best players from 100s of miles away. We don't have that as of right now.

How did Clemson win a championship?

Their starting RB and QB were 4 stars from Georgia
5 of their top 7 pass catchers were from Florida (all but the TE was a 4 star and all 5 had at least 20 receptions, four with 38+)
7 of their top 10 tacklers were from out of state, 3 of them from Virginia.

Until LSU gets back to our winning ways, and/or we hire a coach that actually invigorates the fanbase/recruits, then we'll continue to fall behind.