LSU Football: Why the Tigers should change their recruiting approach

LSU football had a massive recruiting weekend, despite the NCAA ban on visits.

LSU football had numerous blue-chip prospects on campus this past weekend, including five-star defensive end Korey Foreman (the No. 1 recruit in the nation), five-star defensive tackle Maason Smith, and five-star offensive lineman Tristan Leigh.

The trip wasn’t set up by the Tigers’ coaching staff (coaches can’t have face to face contact with recruits right now, due to the current NCAA ban on recruiting visits).

Instead, four-star LSU quarterback commit Garrett Nussmeier and his mother planned the entire trip. They reached out to various Tigers commits and recruiting targets, planned the itinerary, and made it all happen.

Will anything come of the trip?

That’s impossible to know right now. But the reviews of the trip so far have been positive.

They’ve been so positive, in fact, that I think this trip could completely change how LSU approaches recruiting in the future.

LSU football could change its recruiting approach

Nussmeier and various other recruits/parents involved with the trip spoke to The Athletic this week about the weekend visit.

One of the comments that stood out the most to me came from Leigh’s mother.

“It’s probably the single-best recruiting event a school can have, even if they aren’t involved in it,” said Laura Rigney (Leigh’s mother, via The Athletic).

Here’s what Rigney had to say, specifically, about why the weekend was better than typical recruiting visits:

"We have gone to games and recruiting events in the past, everything is really scheduled and tight. Getting into towns during game day is difficult. You spend most of your time just going from Point A to Point B. You see a lot of faces, but you don’t get a chance to know them so well because you’re so busy. On this trip, we got to know the other recruits and the committed kids. There were a lot of opportunities for the kids to sit down and say, ‘Oh my God, we could totally play together."

Rigney isn’t wrong. Typical recruiting weekends — even for unofficial visits — are planned almost to the minute. It’s a fun time for recruits, but there’s not a lot of time for recruits to let relationships develop naturally.

A weekend of hanging out with fellow recruits/commits is probably more effective than a weekend of putting recruits in uniforms for photoshoots (recruits love that as well, but there could be room for both).

I don’t know how LSU could switch things up. But I feel certain that Ed Orgeron and his staff will see this feedback from Rigney and change the way they handle unofficial visits.

And they should. After all, it’s all about the players at the end of the day.