{"id":274597,"date":"2026-05-18T00:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T00:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/274597\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T00:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T00:19:09","slug":"why-lsus-rebuild-feels-different-from-ole-miss-fsu-and-texas-techs-in-recent-college-football-offseasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/274597\/","title":{"rendered":"Why LSU\u2019s rebuild feels different from Ole Miss, FSU, and Texas Tech\u2019s in recent College Football offseasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why LSU\u2019s rebuild feels different from Ole Miss, FSU, and Texas Tech\u2019s in recent College Football offseasons<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The LSU Tigers<\/a>\u2019 rebuild under Lane Kiffin has serious hype heading into a season with championship-or-bust expectations<\/a> in Baton Rouge. While there have been recent mass transfer portal mass purchases in recent seasons, CBS Sports\u2019 Brad Crawford<\/a> feels the Bayou Bengals\u2019 rebuild \u201cfeels different\u201d than programs like the Ole Miss Rebels<\/a>, which had Kiffin rebuilding the roster through the portal nearly every season, the Florida State Seminoles<\/a>, and the Texas Tech Red Raiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Per Crawford, \u201cKiffin got off to a slow start in finding a quarterback before signing Leavitt, the top-ranked player in this cycle, along with USC transfer Husan Longstreet<\/a> and Elon’s Landen Clark. Landing more than two dozen transfers was the biggest factor in LSU earning the top-rated class in 247Sports’ Composite rankings, but Kiffin also secured a pair of program-changing five-star freshmen in pass rushers Richard Anderson and Lamar Brown. Those two prep standouts will be impact players in time, but this year, LSU will largely rely on its reshaped roster built through the transfer portal under its first-year coach. Programs like Florida State<\/a>, Ole Miss<\/a> and Texas Tech<\/a> have all shown year-over-year improvement through high-end portal classes, but this LSU haul feels different. Kiffin is aiming to make that success sustainable over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kiffin added impact players at the most important positions on the field. From a football perspective, the Tigers look like a team that can win enough games on talent alone to make noise in the SEC.<\/p>\n

Is making noise the expectation, though? Absolutely not, when you consider that Kiffin has a guaranteed $72 million coming his way on a seven-year, $91 million contract<\/a> to be LSU\u2019s head football coach.<\/p>\n

Lane Kiffin will get no pat on the back from LSU short of a national championship<\/p>\n

The Tigers wanted Kiffin for his consistency. LSU paid Kiffin to win national championships.<\/p>\n

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What Kiffin did at Ole Miss, bringing in top talent via mostly the portal, but also via the high school realm, like Raleigh, Mississippi’s Suntarine Perkins<\/a>, and Montgomery, Alabama’s Quinshon Judkins<\/a>, would\u2019ve gotten him a statue in Oxford had he won a single championship after a decade in charge.<\/p>\n

Kiffin doesn\u2019t have that kind of time with the Tigers. Kiffin needs to deliver a championship sooner rather than later, or else LSU will find a way to fire him with cause. Given the money owed to Brian Kelly for his firing, and since Ed Orgeron\u2019s balance was finally settled in December, the Tigers will do whatever it takes to get out of Kiffin\u2019s contract. Kiffin ought to play it safe in Baton Rouge — if he knows how to do such a thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why LSU\u2019s rebuild feels different from Ole Miss, FSU, and Texas Tech\u2019s in recent College Football offseasons originally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[117304,1320,3731,117305,10713,4657,9918,10481,19891,55960,232,234,233,10439,2526,25011],"class_list":["post-274597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-brad-crawford","tag-florida-state","tag-florida-state-seminoles","tag-husan-longstreet","tag-lane-kiffin","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-ole-miss","tag-ole-miss-rebels","tag-quinshon-judkins","tag-suntarine-perkins","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-texas-tech","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","tag-the-tigers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}