In the wonderful world of college football with the Transfer Portal being an option on the table, it has made it even more possible for players to remove themselves from a situation that they don’t want to be in. There are a lot of reasons why a player might leave a school, ranging from lack of playing time, a promise not kept, or a bigger NIL payout elsewhere. When coaches are fired, we also typically see a lot of roster turnover.
When LSU fired head coach Brian Kelly a few weeks ago, many believed that we would see several players enter the portal, as well as suffer various decommitments on the recruiting trail. Up until this point, that hasn’t yet been true. The Tigers have suffered just one decommitment in their 2026 recruiting class, Orlando (Fla.) Lake Nona EDGE DeAnthony Lafayette, who has since flipped to the Miami Hurricanes.
In comparison, when the Penn State Nittany Lions had let go of head coach James Franklin a couple of weeks before, we saw an immediate exodus on the recruiting side. 17 commits have decommitted from the Nittany Lions since that firing happened. That difference speaks volumes for the perception of Brian Kelly and his recruiting impact, whether you want to admit it or not…