College Football HQ

$91 million head coach draws attention while signing 40+ college football players

One of the biggest names in college coaching has been one of the busiest in the offseason.
Joe Cox|
A high-profile head coach has done nothing to drop attention with a massive transfer portal haul.
A high-profile head coach has done nothing to drop attention with a massive transfer portal haul. | Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

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One of college football's highest paid head coaches has also been the busiest in the transfer portal. With his class of incoming portal signees soaring toward over 40 (among the largest in the nation), there's certainly been no rest for one of the busiest head coaches in college football.

Granted, portal numbers have soared across college football. Even as a top program climbs toward 40 portal additions, four FBS teams have already topped that mark. But few have added the level of players or have mined his own prior roster quite like new LSU coach Lane Kiffin.

Massive portal haul for Kiffin

The exact numbers aren't even clear. 247sports says he's got 39 portal additions, while On3 has him at 38. Others say he's already hit 40, including some LSU recruiting analysts. But fresh off signing a $91 million contract, the new LSU coach has been hitting the transfer portal hard.

Of course, there's a perfect storm element for Kiffin. He moved on from Ole Miss to LSU after the 2025 regular season, while his new school had parted was with Brian Kelly around midseason. LSU has had somewhere between 33 (On3) and 37 (247) outgoing players,

Kiffin has grabbed some major headlines by raiding his Ole Miss roster for a couple of late signees, highly-rated EDGE Princewill Umanmielen and LB TJ Dottery. This comes only weeks after he Tweeted that he would be rooting for Ole Miss and that the purported SEC rivalry "isn't the Hunger Games." It is notable that as yet, Kiffin has only taken four players on from Ole Miss.

The biggest portal classes

247 ranks LSU atop the transfer portal, but there are other massive classes across the nation. A shift in head coaches seems to be the common thread. The four schools listed with more commitments than the Tigers are Oklahoma State (54), Colorado (42), UCLA (41), and Arkansas (40). Other than Colorado, where Deion Sanders has always been super-active in the portal, the other four of the five busiest portal programs are at schools with new coaches incoming.

Other coaches on the move and roster raids

As for Kiffin raiding his old roster, he's not unique there either. Eric Morris at Oklahoma State has taken on 17 players from his former school, North Texas. It's worth noting that the other side of Morris's portal haul is that Oklahoma State has lost 64 portal players.

New UCLA boss Bob Chensey has taken on 10 players from James Madison. The Bruins have also lost a relatively light load of 24 players. Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield has only taken seven players from Memphis and has lost 39 players from the Arkansas roster he inherited.

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Joe Cox
JOE COX

Joe is a journalist and writer who covers college and professional sports. He has written or co-written over a dozen sports books, including several regional best sellers. His last book, A Fine Team Man, is about Jackie Robinson and the lives he changed. Joe has been a guest on MLB Network, the Paul Finebaum show and numerous other television and radio shows. He has been inside MLB dugouts, covered bowl games and conference tournaments with Saturday Down South and still loves telling the stories of sports past and present.

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