Entering his second season in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, LSU coach Brian Kelly has reshaped the Tigers’ roster this offseason with a recruiting class that now sits atop the 247Sports Transfer Portal Team Rankings as of Friday morning. The Tigers took the No. 1 spot over Florida State with the commitment of four-star linebacker Omar Speights, formerly of Oregon State.
LSU holds 11 commitments from transfers, eight of whom earned four-star ratings. Partially as a result, the Tigers now sit at No. 4 in 247Sports’ overall team recruiting rankings, which combined transfers and high school commits. Kelly and company are poised to bring in a whopping 36 new players, 27 of whom rate as either four- or five-star recruits.
Speights led Oregon State with 83 total tackles in 2022 to go with eight tackles for loss on one of the Pac-12’s toughest defense, as the Beavers allowed only 20 points per game. He is LSU’s only pure linebacker commit among 2023 transfers. Kelly has primarily used the transfer portal to revamp LSU’s defense — 10 of the Tigers’ 11 transfers commits are on the defensive side of the ball. Former Alabama wide receiver Aaron Anderson, a four-star transfer, is the only commit on offense.
The vast majority of LSU’s No. 1 transfer class composes of talented players who join the Tigers from other Power Five programs. In fact, all 10 of the Tigers’ FBS transfers come from the Power Five level. But LSU also brings in one FCS transfer in former Southeastern Louisiana cornerback Zy Alexander, a four-star transfer who starred for the Lions.
Other transfer commits for the Tigers include: former Texas edge defender Ovie Oghoufo (no rating), former Ohio State cornerback JK Johnson (four-star), former Syracuse cornerback Duce Chestnut (four-star), former West Virginia defensive lineman Jordan Jefferson (four-star), former Texas A&M cornerback Denver Harris (four-star), former Florida defensive lineman Jalen Lee (four-star), former Arizona defensive lineman Paris Shand (three-star) and former Oregon edge defender Bradyn Swinson (three-star).
On the other hand, LSU also lost a handful of talented transfers including tight end Jack Bech, linebacker DeMario Tolan and quarterback Walker Howard. Bech landed at TCU, Tolan at Auburn and Howard at Ole Miss. Early preseason rankings peg LSU as a top-10 team for the 2023 season thanks in part to the return of star quarterback Jayden Daniels. The Tigers went 10-4 in 2022 and beat Purdue 63-7 in the Citrus Bowl to end their season.
After No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Florida State, the top five of 247Sports’ Transfer Portal Team Rankings includes No. 3 Auburn, No. 4 Colorado and No. 5 USC.
