re: Recruiting pitch for all you “we haven’t gotten enough portal” people ….

Jay Johnson won a CWS by killing it in the portal. Now he did have some key players that had developed through the program, but he may repeat by killing it in the portal again. There's more than one way to build a winning program

We weren't winning it all last year without Skenes, Hurd, Ack, Cooper, White, etc. And we wouldn't repeat this year without Hurd, Jump, White, Ack, Loer, Bingham, etc.

Just like we don't win the SEC west 2 years ago without Garner, Brooks, Foucha, and Bernard-Converse. Yet if we had those guys last year we would've been in the playoffs

The reason is common sense, and anyone willing to step back and look at the bigger picture can see it.

LSU has an elite recruiting base. It's up there with UGA- there technically may be more recruits in Georgia's area, but the competition for them is way more intense.
UGA has shown it doesn't need to hit the portal much, if at all. As long as it recruits it's base correctly, it will be top tier annually. LSU, if it locks down La, and cherry-picks SE Texas/Houston and the Gulf Coast as far as the panhandle, projects to be the same; possibly better if we look historically at things.

Kelly has a solid long-term contract, he's safe to build things this way. It is BETTER for 2026, for example, that he bring in top high school corners and develop them, than to keep bringing in the portal guys who leave in a year. It might be better in 2024 to get the portal guys, but then you're doing it again next year... he needs to break that cycle. And since he's secure in his contract, he can afford to do that.

You very succinctly describe exactly what is happening at LSU right now.

Our Coach, and really the athletic department as a whole is very deliberate in their decision making process.

We absolutely want to let our new defensive coaching staff get a hold of the guys on our roster to see what we have, especially on the back end.

Of course we need a minimum of 2 DTs, and I have to believe, just based of how we've seen this AD and coach operate that there is a plan in place to relieve our problems at defensive tackle.

We know that initially Kelly wanted to retain Maason and Wingo, and at least in the case if Maason, Kelly had the same belief that most of us had.

That is that it was in Maasons best interest to stay a other year. Had we been able to announce Bo Davis a week earlier, I believe Maason would have stayed.

I am a believer in the deliberate approach the Kelly has when making big decisions, however that delay cost us Maason, and another LB who really wanted to come to LSU but apparently couldn't wait until our staff hires were announced.

There's a pro and con to everything. We got the best staff in the long term, but lost a couple sure fire contributors in the short term.

Regardless, his approach was the right one, the best hire is rarely the fastest hire. I'd rather have Bo Davis, People's, Baker and Raymond over Maason Smith and Pooh any day.