2022 Football Roster, Getting Close To The 85 Limit.

[LSUDad]

After national signing day, LSU football much closer to full roster

• BY WILSON ALEXANDER | STAFF WRITER
• PUBLISHED FEB 9, 2022 AT 6:15 PM | UPDATED FEB 9, 2022 AT 6:32 PMI 

 

LSU head coach Brian Kelly speaks as he is introduced during a press conference, Wednesday, December 1, 2021, at LSU in Baton Rouge, La.

STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK

 

 

Wilson Alexander

Heading into the offseason, coach Brian Kelly understood one of his top priorities needed to be rebuilding LSU’s roster. Two years of transfers, departures for the NFL and general mismanagement had left the team with 38 scholarship players for the Texas Bowl in January.

There were more returning players than that. Some had injuries. Others were unavailable for various reasons. But the depth chart still needed to be restocked to field a competitive team next season.

Kelly accomplished that goal. Now that national signing day has passed, LSU has 80 players on scholarship, pulling the roster much closer to the 85-person limit for the 2022 season.

 

While Kelly and his staff must manage the roster properly throughout the transfer portal era, increasing the numbers reinforced the Tigers’ foundation at the beginning of his tenure.

The new coaches refilled the roster by using the transfer portal, signing recruits and persuading some draft-eligible players to stay. LSU has 28 new players so far, and the team can add four more through a temporary waiver designed to help with roster management.

Maintaining rosters near the 85-scholarship limit had become a difficult task because of the transfer portal. When players left, so did their scholarship, which is called an initial counter.

Initial counters are players who come to LSU with a scholarship, not later put on scholarship, so someone like tight end Jack Mashburn — who received a scholarship last season after coming to LSU as a walk-on — wasn’t considered a scholarship player.

Unable to use the scholarship on someone else and constricted to a 25-person signing classes, rosters dwindled.

LSU even played underneath the scholarship limit when it won the national championship, and then more than a dozen players left, many of them for the NFL. Near the end of the 2020 season, LSU entered a game with 69 scholarship players.

 

Relief came this year when the NCAA passed a temporary waiver, which gave back some of the initial counters if players transferred. Teams could sign up to 32 players if they lost seven players in good academic standing through the transfer portal.

With 10 players in the transfer portal itself, LSU was able to use the full allotment. Similar to years past, it could also sign more transfers and fewer incoming freshmen. Kelly wants to build the team long-term through high school classes, but he understood this year needed to be an exception. He wanted experience.

LSU has since added 13 transfers after former Archbishop Rummel and South Carolina linebacker Kolbe Fields signed last weekend. Linebacker was one of the primary positions LSU needed to address, and it gained two transfers while signing five-star prospect Harold Perkins last week. The staff also persuaded senior Micah Baskerville to return for one more year, stabilizing the room.

On top of its transfer haul — which also helped rebuild the secondary and the offensive line in particular — LSU signed 15 incoming freshmen. While the class was smaller than years past and ranked No. 12 nationally, it included Perkins and five other top 150 national prospects.

Combined with the transfers, LSU has the No. 6 class in the country, according to 247Sports.

LSU also persuaded multiple players to stay, keeping experienced talent on the roster. There was Baskerville. Defensive end Ali Gaye, safety Jay Ward and wide receiver Jaray Jenkins also postponed their professional careers, opting instead for another year at LSU.

LSU won’t have the full roster for spring practice with some of the incoming freshmen and transfers arriving this summer, but it will sit closer to a full team at the beginning of preseason practice.

If the staff uses those four remaining spots, which will likely go to more transfers in the weeks and months ahead, then LSU will have 84 scholarship players.

[LSUDad]

Remember this?