Kiffin's portal overhaul aims to vault LSU into contention
LSU finished 7-6 and 3-5 in the SEC in 2025, a middling season that ended with a 35-38 Texas Bowl loss to Houston and cost Brian Kelly his job eight games into his fourth year in Baton Rouge. The Tigers answered by winning the offseason's biggest sweepstakes, luring Lane Kiffin away from Ole Miss on a seven-year, $91 million contract just as the Rebels were bound for the College Football Playoff.
Kiffin inherited a roster he immediately rebuilt, bringing in 59 newcomers, including 43 transfers, and pouring an estimated $40 million of NIL money into the effort. Only five starters return. The self-styled portal king went for strength and speed at nearly every level, and his first LSU team looks more explosive than the one he took over. The catch: turning a collection of talent into one cohesive unit is the whole ballgame.
Offense
Everything starts with Sam Leavitt, the portal's top-ranked quarterback after arriving from Arizona State. A hard-nosed dual threat who originally signed with Michigan State in 2023, Leavitt led the Sun Devils to the 2024 Big 12 championship and a Playoff berth, throwing for 2,885 yards and 24 touchdowns while adding 443 yards and five scores on the ground. Across his 24-game Arizona State career he passed for 4,652 yards and 36 touchdowns and ran for 816 yards and 10 more, totaling better than 5,400 yards and 46 touchdowns between his two schools. His 2025 was cut short by an October foot injury that limited him to seven starts and required November surgery, and he missed most of his first spring in Baton Rouge while recovering. If he holds up, LSU has its most important upgrade. True freshman Husan Longstreet is the primary backup.
Leavitt inherits an almost entirely new receiving corps, with nine wideouts arriving through the portal. Jayce Brown is the headliner, a senior who piled up 1,972 receiving yards over three years at Kansas State at 17.1 per catch across 27 starts. Eugene Wilson III comes over from Florida, where he posted 61 catches for 538 yards and six scores in 2023. Jackson Harris adds another proven producer after a 963-yard, first-team All-Mountain West season at Hawaii. The X-factor is tight end Trey'Dez Green, a 6-foot-7 matchup nightmare who led the team with seven touchdown catches in 2025 while totaling 33 receptions for 433 yards and earning second-team All-SEC honors. Kiffin spent the offseason dreaming up ways to exploit Green, who lends value as both a receiver and an extra blocker and profiles as one of the better tight end prospects in the country.
Persuading Harlem Berry and Caden Durham to stay was a coup. Berry, a sophomore, ran for 491 yards at 4.7 a carry, while Durham added 505 yards at 4.5. Wisconsin transfer Dilin Jones joined the mix and had a productive spring, giving the group the depth Kiffin can lean on behind an offense built to run tempo.
The front is anchored by a marquee portal arrival, left tackle Jordan Seaton. The top-rated tackle available, he started 22 games in two years at Colorado, allowed just one sack across 561 snaps and made second-team All-Big 12 despite missing the final three games with an injury. He reportedly trimmed 25 pounds to a leaner 307 and is widely projected as a first-round pick. Senior center Braelin Moore is the mainstay inside after starting 12 games a year ago and 24 across two seasons at Virginia Tech before that. Seaton headlines a group of five linemen who came through the portal, among them former Maryland guard Aliou Bah, and how quickly they gel will decide how fast the offense comes together.
Defense
The pass rush got a jolt from Princewill Umanmielen, who followed Kiffin over from Ole Miss after tying for third in the SEC with 9.0 sacks while adding 44 tackles and four tackles for loss. He joins Jordan Ross, a former freshman All-SEC end at Tennessee, to give LSU real juice off the edge. Inside, Stephiylan Green arrives from Clemson with 42 tackles and 3.5 sacks on his ledger, and returning junior tackle Dominick McKinley gives the interior a foundation. Auburn transfer Malik Blocton and heralded freshmen Richard Anderson and Deuce Geralds, along with prized recruit Lamar Brown, add depth. The hope is that with more talent up front, LSU won't have to blitz so often to generate pressure.
The heartbeat is senior Whit Weeks, the emotional and physical leader of the defense and its leading tackler in 2024 with 125 stops and 10 tackles for loss en route to third-team All-America recognition. He was still working back from a broken ankle suffered against Ole Miss, so his health bears watching. Kiffin also imported TJ Dottery from Ole Miss, who led the SEC in tackles, while Davhon Keys returns as another experienced option in the middle.
The secondary may be the defense's strength. Cornerback DJ Pickett, a 6-4 Freshman All-American who picked off three passes, is the heir apparent to a departed All-American and one of the league's rising cover men, with PJ Woodland set opposite him after starting all 13 games as a sophomore. At safety, Boise State transfer Ty Benefield should start right away after racking up 107 tackles, joining returning junior Tamarcus Cooley. Nickel Dashawn Spears chips in after a season with 29 tackles, three tackles for loss, two breakups and two interceptions.
The kicking game returns one proven weapon and adds another. Punter Grant Chadwick ranked among the SEC's best, averaging 45.7 yards on 62 punts with 21 downed inside the 20. Scott Starzyk arrives from Arkansas to replace record-setting kicker Damian Ramos, bringing Freshman All-SEC credentials after making 14 of 18 field goals and all 47 extra points. Josh Jackson is in line to handle returns.
Overview and Prediction
The schedule opens at home against Clemson in the back half of a home-and-home; LSU won last year's meeting 17-10 in Death Valley. The defining early test comes September 19 at Ole Miss, Kiffin's return to Oxford, and the home slate also brings Texas A&M, Alabama and Texas, with road trips to Kentucky, Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas. It rates among the tougher slates in the country.
The preseason consensus pegs LSU as a top-10 team nationally and a top-three-to-five contender in the SEC, and the talent and depth justify the optimism. The verdict comes down to chemistry: with 59 newcomers and heavy NIL money in the room, the make-or-break is whether Kiffin and his staff can weld the disparate parts into one team fast enough to reach the Playoff for the first time since 2019. Retaining coordinator Blake Baker, who turned down head-coaching interviews to stay, was a quiet but crucial step toward that end.