3 Things LSU Football Must Do Before the 2026 Season Begins

There's a particular kind of quiet that settles over Baton Rouge in July. The transfer portal windows have closed, most of the roster has been assembled, and Tiger Stadium sits empty under the Louisiana heat, waiting.

But inside the LSU football facility, nothing about this offseason has felt quiet. Lane Kiffin's first year at the helm has been a sprint from the moment he touched down in Baton Rouge, and now, with the season approaching fast, the pressure is getting turned up.

The roster Kiffin and his staff assembled is loaded with highly rated and proven difference-makers: transfers Sam Leavitt, Jordan Seaton and Princewill Umanmielen. When Kiffin was asked directly whether this is the most talented roster he's had, he was careful to frame it honestly.

Kiffin said that the names on the depth chart look great on paper. But whether they gel into a team by the time the lights come on in Death Valley is a different question entirely. One that LSU needs to answer soon.

Get, And Stay, Healthy

August 15, 2024; Tempe, Ariz., U.S.; ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt (10) throws a pass during practice. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Leavitt spent the offseason rehabbing a foot injury from last fall and is now cleared and back to full strength in Baton Rouge. Kiffin, who has coached his share of pro-caliber arms in college, didn't hold back in his evaluation of what he's seeing in his new signal-caller.

Kiffin described Leavitt as a strong-armed, strong-minded quarterback with a professional mindset who is constantly working. Leavitt's return to health came a little later than the staff would have liked given how many new pieces surround him, and that timing matters.

But Leavitt has added some weight to his frame and is spending this summer building rapport with a receiving corps, but chemistry isn't something that happens in a film room. It happens in offseason throwing sessions, in fall camp reps and in the small moments where a quarterback learns where his guy is going to be before the route even breaks.

The goal for Leavitt isn't just being cleared medically; that box is already checked. It's making sure the offense doesn't spend the first few weeks of the season still figuring out its timing.

Get Rid of the First Year Jitters

LSU Tigers Football: Deuce Geralds. — Courtesy of Deuce Geralds via X.

Another position that LSU needs to get up to full speed is the defensive line.

But it isn't about talent; it's about patience and how much of it Kiffin's staff is willing to spend.

This team has a lot of returning pieces and proven transfers, but one group of players has turned heads early in the timeline of LSU's 2026 team.

LSU's 2026 high school signing class was headlined by a trio of elite defensive linemen: five-star Lamar Brown, the No. 1 prospect in Louisiana; five-star Richard Anderson, the top-ranked defensive lineman in the country; and four-star Deuce Geralds out of Georgia.

But that's not ordinary freshman depth. That's blue-chip, day-one-impact talent walking into a room that already has established veterans. Before anyone showed up on campus and took part in spring practice, the freshmen had a lot of people questioning if they could see playing time in their first seasons.

While every coaching staff says it plays the best players regardless of age, rotations get conservative fast when the games start counting. If LSU puts these three in, and is patient and eases them in, the correct moment can add confidence and momentum to their game.

But if Kiffin trusts them from Week 1, the ceiling is higher, but so is the risk of freshman mistakes in tight games.

Turning a Roster To a Team

Dec 1, 2025; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; LSU president Wade Rousse, left, LSU new head coach Lane Kiffin and LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry stand together at South Stadium Club at Tiger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

LSU has to become a team, not a collection of the year's best transfer portal additions. It's that simple.

It's easy to forget, amid the recruiting rankings and the "best class ever" talk, that Kiffin's staff didn't just add players. That kind of roster churn, even when it upgrades raw talent, comes with a cost: continuity, chemistry and shared language on both sides of the ball. All things that LSU has to rebuild from scratch.

This is where Kiffin's track record actually helps.

He's done this before: walked into a new job, absorbed a flood of new pieces and he produced a functional team on the field by September.

But LSU in 2026 isn't a mid-major turnaround job like FIU was for Kiffin in 2017. It's a program with championship expectations, multiple primetime games and a fan base that has waited through a rough stint of football for exactly this kind of expectation.

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