LSU’s defeat to Florida effectively ended their 2024 season and Brian Kelly is already mapping out plans for the next year. The HC has said he’s been meeting with recruiting coordinator Frank Wilson and LSU’s associate athletic director for football administration Austin Thomas, to plan where the Tigers go next in terms of recruiting, roster retention, and the transfer portal.

After all, over three years, Kelly has struggled to make the most use of the transfer portal. On that note, an insider adds to the intrigue by giving a glimpse of the financial scene in the Tigers’ hood.

Insider Matt Moscona talked about the situation at LSU on the After Further Review: LSU podcast. “There are no doubt going to be people in programs that have more money than LSU does that can know how much to squeeze so I’m not going to disclose a number,” he began.

But the analyst got to know that Kelly has some heavy fortune stacked up for the upcoming season. “What I have consistently said is LSU will spend more than double on the 2025 roster than it did on the 2024 roster and a big part of that is because they were lacking in the portal last year,” reassured the analyst.

Well, the wounds are still fresh for Kelly. After all, they were on cloud nine right after the No.1 player in America, Bryce Underwood committed to the Tigers. But the 5-star QB has flipped to Michigan Wolverines, who reportedly offered him a bigger NIL deal. As per the sources, Sherrone Moore lured away Bryce Underwood by offering the QB an NIL offer of $10 million onwards. Significantly, Brian Kelly’s budget was less than that.

This was enough to open the gashes of Kelly’s old wounds from the 2023 portal when they struggled to land big shots like Simeon Barrow and Damonic Williams, as they went for Miami and Oklahoma.

Kelly is also determined to be more resourceful and add to the program via the transfer portal and hinted at a change in strategy from this year. On Monday, he said, “We’ll be very aggressive think everybody that’s followed us knows that we weren’t very aggressive in the transfer portal. We put together a defensive line using minimal resources. We’ve really put ourselves in a position — and I’ll use this term loosely — to stay well under the cap, so we could be quite aggressive this year.”

So, at least in words, Kelly and co. are determined to change the fortunes of their program by implementing a more robust plan.

Brian Kelly’s newfound aggression to flip the LSU script 

If there’s a flip side to Underwood choosing Michigan over LSU, it’s that Brian Kelly’s program can now spread its NIL money around to entice other top prospects. It also can use its resources to retain some of its key players for another year.

As analyst Jordan Rodgers said, “The amount of money that Bryce Underwood was commanding was unreal.” SEC Network play-by-play announcer Tom Hart too recalled a conversation he had with Kelly, “He said, listen, we lose the kid and he ends up at Michigan and it is what it is, but now all of sudden the financial freedom we have to spend on guys that would get a little bit more, to lure more.” Does that mean the HC is learning from his mistakes?

After losing Underwood to Michigan, LSU can now eye on freshman Darian Mensah and Air Noland to seek a replacement for their QB Garrett Nussmeier who is all set to swap wagons being the first-round pick of the 2025 NFL draft. 

Kelly’s position at the Tigers may not be under threat yet, but he will be under pressure to deliver and turn LSU into contenders in the near future. For this, the work is already underway and it seems the brakes are coming off.