Brian Kelly downplays NIL, defensive line struggles: Says LSU football is 'not in the market of buying players'
The 2023 college football season was one to forget for LSU’s defense.
The Tigers routinely struggled last year in stopping or even slowing down opposing offenses, giving up 28 points per game — ahead of only Vanderbilt among SEC teams — and negating much of the offensive wizardry from a unit piloted by Jayden Daniels, the 2023 Heisman Trophy recipient. The interior of LSU’s defensive line embodied those woes, allowing 4.53 yards per carry (91st among 133 FBS teams) and 161 rushing yards per game (87th).
It's a position group Tigers coach Brian Kelly has said he was hoping to address this offseason through the transfer portal, though in a recent interview with television station WAFB, he revealed it “hasn’t fared very well.”
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When it comes to identifying a culprit for the issues LSU has encountered Kelly pointed to how the presence of lucrative name, image and likeness (NIL) deals for players has changed how they evaluate potential new homes.
“We’re selling something a little bit differently. That is, we want to recruit, we want to engage, build relationships, we want to develop, retain and have success,” Kelly said to WAFB. “We’re not in the market of buying players. Unfortunately, right now, that’s what some guys are looking for. They want to be bought.”
Kelly said that he understands NIL is part of the college football landscape now, with athletes able to cash in on the value they’ve created for themselves. He added that LSU has an “incredible” collective and that players have “very, very generous opportunities” around Baton Rouge to get paid. As a successful program — with three national championships since 2003 — in a football-mad state teeming with talent, the Tigers are seemingly well-positioned to succeed in this new world of college football.
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Most recently, LSU showed off its development chops in the 2024 NFL Draft, which featured three Tigers players: Daniels at No. 2 overall, Malik Nabers at No. 6 overall and Brian Thomas at No. 23 overall — in the first round, tied with Alabama and Washington for the most of any school.
To Kelly, that should be more of a selling point than whatever a program is willing to pay a player up front.
“If you like all the things that we do here — developing our players, bringing you into a championship program, playing in front of the best fan base in America, playing for championships and having an opportunity for NIL — you should be a Tiger,” he said. “But if you just want to get paid, this is not the place for you.”
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Brian Kelly says LSU football is 'not in the market of buying players'
