Michael Bacigalupi
By Hunt Palmer
Timing is a funny thing.
We’ve churned through LSU’s transfer class man for man, and the last edition of “Portal Profile” for 2025 comes on Opening Day for baseball. It’s the best portal class in the country according to 247sports, and ranked second by On3.
LSU added potential stars like Sam Leavitt and Princewill Umanmielen. There were specialists and depth pieces. Even special teams stalwarts and siblings.
In this case both might apply.
WHAT WE KNOW
Zach Grace pledged to the Tigers on January 15, and five days later his younger brother Theo did the same. Zach comes from Oregon. Theo played a season at North Dakota.
Younger brother is 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds. He made 124 tackles as a high school senior in Kearney, Missouri. That was good enough to make him a finalist for the best prep player in the Kansas City area.
He only played in one game at North Dakota which means he is a redshirt freshman at LSU. He’ll have four seasons to play.
THE FIT
LSU is loaded with numbers at linebacker. There’s experience with TJ Dottery, Whit Weeks and Davhon Keys. There’s youth with four redshirt freshmen. That makes the numbers really tight for Grace early on.
HUNT’S PROJECTION
I’d be pretty surprised if Grace got to the field in 2026. Even in a special teams setting, there are probably more talented players in front of him. Still, he’s a good athlete who was a stellar javelin thrower in high school.
If he just wants to share a football program with his older brother for a couple of years and wait his turn to make an impact, he’s got the frame to do it.
It’s hard to see him passing up guys like Charles Ross, Zach Weeks and CJ Jimcoily. I think he can carve out a special teams role in time, but it’ll take just that– time.
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