Lane Kiffin Reveals 'Easy' Decision in Retaining Top LSU Football Defensive Staffers

Lane Kiffin and the LSU Tigers have rebuilt the coaching staff in Baton Rouge this offseason with multiple high-profile assistants making their way to the Bayou State this offseason.

Once Kiffin arrived in town, he brought over multiple staffers from Oxford while retaining critical components to the defensive unit under coordinator Blake Baker.

Along with Baker staying put in Baton Rouge, Kiffin also kept secondary coach Corey Raymond in The Boot as one of the most respected cornerbacks coaches in America.

Across the 2025 season under, the Tigers jumped into the Top-25 of total defense while also sitting among the Top-15 in turnovers gained with 21 in total across 12 games last fall.

LSU’s defense ranked in the top half of the SEC across the 2025 campaign after allowing 319.7 yards per game.

Bakers unit also held teams to 18.3 points on average, which ranked fourth in the conference.

LSU Tigers Football: Blake Baker. — Courtesy of Blake Baker's Instragram.

Kiffin combined his elite offensive staff from Ole Miss - headlined by coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. - and LSU's defensive staff to form one of the top assistant coaching pools in college football.

Lane Kiffin's Take: Retaining Baker and Raymond

"I think consistency. You know, they played well when we'd played in the last two years on defense. I look at things in the big picture and say, 'Okay, well you knew where the defense was three years ago. To see what Blake came in and was able to do in that first year of changing that and how dramatically that shifted, that's good coaching.'

"I thought it was important to keep him. I'd always liked him, always heard good things about him, even talked about him somewhere else we were at and had conversations with him before. Corey, that's just a no-brainer. When you're able to recruit people to someone, Saban used to say this— to me.

LSU Tigers Football: Defensive coordinator Blake Baker helping Brian Kelly's defense in SEC play. — Courtesy of LSU Football.

"Even if they're older and they coach these certain players along the way, they become really easy to recruit to. So Corey, you get a really unique combination because you have somebody you can recruit to that has had great players after great players, after great players. But then somebody that also still recruits that way. It's a really good combination.

"If I get in front of a corner, I get to say, 'Hey, you get to go play for him.' But then he recruits the same way that he did 20 years ago. The reason why I keep signing great players is they want to come play for them. That was an easy one.

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