re: Javien Toviano will visit unofficially for the Alabama game

These days there are 3 different factors that determine where a recruit goes: Emotion (emotional ties), Intellect (best place to develop), and Greed (NIL deals). It gets chaotic because different players weigh these things differently. Javien is very smart, so I think that his intellect will far and away have the most weight. He might be a bit niave (a guess on my part) only due to limited life experiences. My suspicion is that in dealing with recruiting services, he has elected to err on the side of caution, which is why no one hears anything.

His emotional ties seem to strongly favor LSU. Prior to being recruited, if he was wearing a college shirt it was either LSU or OU. So they were his favorites from the start. He had a great visit and loved LSU, and he's also had some social media contact with the honey badger. So, I don't think anyone can compete with LSU in this area.

From the stand point of intellect, LSU has to be a leader here as well. He has a chance to start for a contender. The head coach is highly respected and is rapidly building the team from the ground up. His defensive coordinator is very strong and has ties to the NFL. We have a tradition of putting defensive backs into the NFL, and we have a whole slew of them (including honey badger) that will immediately becomes mentors to him. That's an awfully good situation to be in. So, we are hard to beat here as well.

That leaves the greed factor, and I think his head is screwed on tightly enough that he's not going to be overly swayed by this. I expect he will continue to be cautious. His big payday comes when he gets into the NFL, and LSU has him covered there. If someone does throw a pile of money at him, I expect he'll come back to LSU and tell them. If we just get close to matching in NIL, I can't see him going anywhere else.

So, he's going to take some trips. He's going to say nice things about the places he visits. Then, in all likelihood, he's going to LSU.

Oh, and apparently when a student said they thought he was going to UT, one of Javien's teammates laughed at them. I'll be surprised if that 5th and final visit isn't out of state.