LSU in the "diamond tier" of best coaching jobs - Glen West

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Most would consider the place LSU is in right now as a football program to be its "Golden Era." When looking at the last 25 years of the heights this football team has proven it can reach, there really are very few comparable programs out there.

This week, the CBS Sports team broke down the tiers in which various head coaching jobs around the country are built towards long term success. It's an exercise that weighs recruiting, resources, talent pool, administrative edge and executable expectations. Each one of those categories was given a 1-5 rating for each program and the results were extremely favorable to the team in Baton Rouge.

The very top row was called the "diamond tier" and it consisted of five teams: Texas (4.8), LSU (4.8), Ohio State (4.6), Alabama (4.4) and Georgia (4.4).

"Surprised to see LSU near the top of the list? You shouldn't be. The past three coaches in Baton Rouge have each collected national titles and Brian Kelly may get that opportunity in 2025 -- or else. The money at LSU has put Kelly in a win-or-bust situation. The Tigers have the nation's No. 1 portal signing class, a deep coaching staff and no excuses should the team fall short. LSU is one of the few programs where you're fired if you don't sniff the national title early in your tenure."

The purple and gold being tied right at the tippy top of this with Texas certainly paints a different view than some may have on the outside looking in. While really coming into its own as a powerhouse in the sport over the last two decades, the program hasn't been able to escape that three, four or in rare cases, five loss seasons since the magical run in 2019.

That was six years ago now and LSU hasn't come particularly close to a playoff run since. But yet this job that Brian Kelly currently holds is set up long term to be one of the best in the whole sport. Why?

There are a couple of different factors at play, one being the resource department. The Tigers got the wakeup call last winter with some of the departures in the 2025 freshman class and immediately went to work. Kelly and Austin Thomas deserve a ton of credit for the work that was put in to get NIL into a place of long term sustainability and it's already seeing the results.

LSU signed the No. 1 transfer portal class this past offseason because of the increase in financial resources the program was able to attain. This 2026 class is also seeing the rewards of that work, with three five-star prospects committed and an overall class that's No. 2 in average player rating from top to bottom with a 93.60 grade.

The talent pool in Louisiana per capita is always among the very best in the country. While other states like Texas, Florida and California for example might have more talent, it's only because those states are much bigger than Louisiana. The Tigers have built a successful program over the last two decades by "pulling their base" in the state and it's resulted in three national championships, countless NFL superstars and they now appear to be set up for another great run, which leads us into our next topic of discussion.

The recruiting piece is what will put the purple and gold over the edge and why this job is so highly thought of on a national scale. That couldn't have been more evident than this start to July. LSU has landed a pair of five-star defensive linemen, one from Baton Rouge in Lamar Brown and the other Trenton Henderson out of Florida.

It makes for a class that's knocking on the door of a top-5 group with plenty of more work to be done and at least in recent weeks, was done without the entire recruiting staff infrastructure in place. That's all about to change now with Thomas filling three critical positions in personnel, scouting and recruiting departments that will elevate recruiting even more.

Kelvin Bolden, who worked with Thomas at Ole Miss where they helped build a No. 1 overall transfer portal class, was hired as Associate AD/Assistant General Manager. Then New Orleans native and former LSU staffer Jeff Martin was brought in as the Executive Director of Player Personnel. On Friday, highly regarded director of player personnel Sam Petitto was hired away from Ohio State to be Director of Scouting and Personnel Strategy after previously being Nick Saban's right hand man at Alabama for eight years.

All of those moves were made within the last three days and now gives LSU a structure to attack not only this 2026 class with aggression but also make headway in 2027 and beyond. There are recruits and commits at other schools out there all of these new front office hires will immediately start chipping away at over the next several months.

LSU has all of the makings structurally to make for a consistent winner and the Tigers are tied to Kelly for the foreseeable future to make good on all that is working in the program's favor.

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