re: The criticism of Brian Kelly is interesting

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We've had Top 10 transfer classes in the two cycles before this year, but just keep going with the narrative that Kelly doesn't know how to handle the portal.



It's year 3. I'm honestly just wondering if he can put an SEC defense on the field at this point.

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There are some valid criticisms to be made regarding Kelly and our defense, but there are also reasons why our DL is in the situation it is in. LSU has had a different DL coach every year since winning the national championship in 2019. It's been a revolving door. That is going to effect recruiting at that position. There has been no continuity. Hopefully that will change if Bo Davis sticks around. Last year, our DL coach, Jimmy Lindsey, was diagnosed with a serious illness around the time fall camp started. He could not perform his duties on the field or on the recruiting trail during the year. Kelly had to bring in 82 year old Pete Jenkins to try and hold the unit together.

Kelly and staff have made some errors in their portal evaluations of several defensive players. Additionally, he should have been more aggressive in the fall portal in recruiting more DL, but that was also around the time that he had just fired his entire defensive staff, so who knows how fruitful that would have been. His primary mistake was gambling/hoping that Maason Smith and Mehki Wingo would come back instead of declaring for the draft. After that, they were left with the dregs in the spring portal, and most of those guys are nothing more than depth pieces.

As it stands now, they are probably a couple of recruiting cycles away from fielding a dominant defense provided that the current staff remains in place. It is not ideal, and it is not happening at the rate LSU fans had hoped, but Kelly has fielded good defenses before.