{"id":386570,"date":"2026-01-04T02:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T02:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386570\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T02:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T02:43:07","slug":"lane-kiffin-lsu-earn-commitment-from-4-star-de-jaiden-bryant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386570\/","title":{"rendered":"Lane Kiffin, LSU earn commitment from 4-star DE Jaiden Bryant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767494587_449_lederman_eli.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Eli LedermanJan 3, 2026, 07:40 PM ET<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.<\/p>\n<p>Coach Lane Kiffin landed the highest-ranked pledge of his early tenure at <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"b9a22bd6-7449-92bc-0e95-a6d8da673b3e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/99\/lsu-tigers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LSU<\/a> on Saturday with a commitment from four-star defensive end <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-sports\/football\/recruiting\/player\/_\/id\/266325\/jaiden-bryant\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaiden Bryant<\/a>, ESPN&#8217;s No. 37 overall recruit in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-sports\/football\/recruiting\/rankings\/scnext300boys\/_\/view\/rn300\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2027 recruiting class<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bryant, ESPN&#8217;s No. 5 defensive end in 2027, is a 6-foot-4, 245-pound defender from Columbia, South Carolina. He announced his pledge to the Tigers over Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Miami and Texas A&amp;M live on ESPN2 during the Under Armour All-America game in Deland, Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Kiffin held on to the nation&#8217;s 14th-ranked recruiting class in the 2026 cycle during last month&#8217;s early signing period, only days after he arrived at LSU from Ole Miss on Nov. 30, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/47483486\/sources-portal-qb-brendan-sorsby-visit-texas-tech-lsu\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/r1595882_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/47491636\/lsu-which-assistants-coach-ole-miss\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/r1595771_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>The Tigers&#8217; incoming class is headlined by five-star defensive tackle <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-sports\/football\/recruiting\/player\/_\/id\/256474\/lamar-brown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lamar Brown<\/a>, the program&#8217;s first No. 1-ranked overall signee since Leonard Fournette in 2014. The gifted two-way standout from Baton Rouge&#8217;s University Lab School is one of eight ESPN 300 prospects who committed to ex-Tigers coach Brian Kelly and later signed with the program under Kiffin.<\/p>\n<p>Bryant joins No. 2 pocket passer Peyton Houston (No. 84 overall) as the second pledge to join LSU&#8217;s 2027 class. Houston became the program&#8217;s first 2027 recruit when the in-state quarterback from Shreveport, Louisiana, announced his commitment over Oklahoma, USC, Texas and Texas A&amp;M.<\/p>\n<p>A multi-sport athlete at South Carolina&#8217;s Irmo High School, Bryant has been credited with 171 total tackles and 29.5 sacks over the past two seasons, earning South Carolina&#8217;s 5A Defensive Player of the Year honors in back-to-back campaigns. Bryant closed his junior season this past fall with 79 tackles and 11 sacks while leading Irmo to a state title game appearance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eli LedermanJan 3, 2026, 07:40 PM ET CloseEli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-386570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}