How LSU Football is Approaching On Campus Visits This Summer
It's widely believed that the NCAA is finally set to lift its recruiting restrictions at the end of May, part of which will be allowing recruits on campus at various programs and universities around the country. The restrictions have been in place since March of last year, when college programs across the country were shut down due to COVID-19 and have extended for more than a year.
On campus visits are an incredibly important part of the recruiting process and the 2022 class and beyond have not been able to reap the benefits of those visits to get to know the staff and campus life. There will almost assuredly be guidelines but the Tigers are hard at work setting up visits this summer, luring some of the biggest names around the nation to Baton Rouge to check out the facility.
Top tier talents Shemar Stewart, Kelvin Banks and Malik Agbo are just a few of the reported visits the Tigers have set up for the summer in early June. One would have to summize that the local talent like Jacoby Mathews, Shazz Preston, Le'veon Moss and Emory Jones will be on campus at some point as well.
With 11 commits already in the class, coach Ed Orgeron gave his thoughts on how he feels about the class to this point. The Tigers have a heavy local flavor of Louisiana talent with Walker Howard, Will Campbell, AJ Johnson and Laterrance Welch, just a few of the eight total Louisiana prospects.
"We feel good about our class coming up. We're going to (do) the same approach is that the guys in state can always come unofficially if they allow us," Orgeron said. "That's something that we want. We want them to come unofficially as many times that they can so that their families can be on campus, we can show them academics."
The team has always adopted the philosophy of setting up official visits after the season and right before signing day. But many of these prospects decide during the early signing period now and like to make visits during the season, which is something Orgeron says the program accomodates fully.
"Obviously, they have to pay for their lunch and eat lunch and stuff like that, but we want them to come on an official visit after the season when it comes close to signing day," Orgeron said. "That's always been our philosophy. Now, if a player chooses, he says, 'Hey coach, I'm going to decide early, I'll need to take an official visit,' we'll make an exception.
"Now, out of state, guys that are really, really interested in us. We're going to (official) visit those guys in June because they can't come to campus on their own. A lot of those guys can't come during the season."
There will almost certainly be more visits set up in the coming weeks and with LSU having among the very best starts to the 2022 class, will be interesting to see what kind of impact visits will have on those out of state prospects.
