The long summer has come and gone.
LSU reports to practice on Wednesday. It’s full steam ahead toward Clemson on Labor Day Weekend. That kicks off a school year that simply has to go better than the one we just left behind. Not since the 60s has LSU posted sub-.500 SEC records in football, men’s basketball and baseball. They did just that in 2025-26.
Lane Kiffin and Will Wade have come in to fix two problems, and everyone feels like Jay Johnson did his part in a freed up summer.
Let’s get to your questions in this week’s mailbag.
When will #TheWadeBrigade have a full roster & how do you foresee it closing out?
Will Wade told Jon Rothstein he’d have his roster in place prior to school starting. That gives him three weeks. As I wrote over the weekend, LSU was prepared for this flood of fifth-year players into the transfer portal because of the injunction against the NCAA on Friday.
I fully expect some commitments to the program in the next 10 days, and LSU will have its full complement of 13 players by Aug. 24 when classes begin. Wade needs a point guard and can always use more size. I expect both of those will be addressed and likely already have.
How much madness and mayhem will the recent NCAA eligibility court cases and possible legislation create for LSU football and other athletic teams?
It won’t impact the LSU football team at all in 2026. That roster is set, and the payroll is finalized. So few players fit the category of “good enough to help LSU but not good enough to make an NFL training camp roster.” Moving forward, I’d expect it to impact things a lot. Now everyone has a fifth season to play, and it’s a lucrative place to play. Ask Trinidad Chambliss and Diego Pavia. They’d like to stay in college for a decade.
You’re never going to keep Derek Stingley, Malik Nabers and Jordan Seaton around for five years, because the real payday comes from that second NFL contract. Bijan Robinson was guaranteed $51 million on Tuesday. But solid college players who would be sixth or seventh rounders or UDFAs may stick around another year for guaranteed money in college. I’d expect that moving forward.
Hunt, with such high expectations from preseason reports with subsequent poor results from last year’s football team, what lessons have the media (you) learned as to what went wrong?
Great question. I’m never afraid to be wrong. Talk for 20 hours a week and write another 20 stories, and you’re bound to airball at times. I was dead wrong on football and baseball last year, and I took time to evaluate what I missed.
The Garrett Nussmeier injury wasn’t something I accounted for. That played a part in LSU’s offensive ineptitude. So did offensive line play, scheme and a few other things, but the quarterback injury would have been tough to quantify in the preseason.
The other part of this is the optimism that comes with August. Two weeks ago at SEC Media Days, I probably listened to multiple 2-7 SEC coaches tell me how good their teams are this year. It’s just the nature of the calendar. Almost no one is hurt. No one has lost a game. Players are in the best shape of their lives.
What I will say is that I’m being cautious this year. I’m leaning closer to 8-4 than 11-1. A 9-3 prediction is probably where I’m closest. I have real concerns with the defensive line and right tackle spots. Maybe that’s a little scar tissue from last year.
Is private equity going to destroy college sports?
I don’t think so. I can see the slippery slope everyone is worried about. Private equity gets its teeth in. The investors start calling the shots and drive up parking and ticketing prices so that only corporations can afford them, and the entire product becomes commercialized while the fans get the shaft.
I just think administrators are smart enough not to destroy the soul of collegiate athletics. Perhaps that’s naive, but it’s how I feel. I’m no economics guru. The financial future of college sports has never been muddier. I know that doubling the roster spend year over year isn’t sustainable. LSU can’t jump to an $80 million team next fall.
There will, undoubtedly, be a major shift in how athletic departments create cash flow and operate financially, but I just have a hard time thinking private equity is going to take controlling interest in LSU, Ohio State, Georgia and Penn State athletics and distribute all the tickets to AT&T and Shell.
