BATON ROUGE - LSU football coach Brian Kelly knows his program is not on the level of Alabama, yet.

No. 17 LSU (6-2, 4-1 SEC) plays No. 6 Alabama (7-1, 4-1) on Saturday (6 p.m., ESPN) at Tiger Stadium.

Kelly said Monday the Tigers still have a ways to go before they can build a program that can "upstage" the Crimson Tide.

"We're certainly not there yet," Kelly said.

Getting to that point, Kelly explains, will require LSU to recruit Louisiana at an "elite" level. And not just southern Louisiana, but the entire state.

"I think there's been a heightened focus of making sure that in the state of Louisiana, we're not myopic in a sense that we're just in one geographical area. It's got to really focus on the entire state," Kelly said. "I think it starts there."

Kelly added LSU's staff has done a good job of identifying talent from not just the Class of 2023 and 2024, but also 2025 and 2026.

"This adage of locking down the borders is like being a lockdown corner(back)," Kelly said. "There are no lockdown corners, OK. There are good corners and there are corners that are elite. We can be elite in the state of Louisiana."

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Kelly envisions that LSU's future success will be predicated on its ability to produce high-level freshman classes. But because of the roster's current state, the Tigers will likely need to dip back into the transfer portal this offseason.

"This program will be built on freshmen, but there are a couple of positions that still have holes in them that need to be supplanted with some transfers, but we're much better than we were last year," Kelly said. "... This is just about player development and bringing in freshmen. That's stage two in terms of getting to where we need to be to hopefully get to that final narrative, upstaging Alabama."

Koki Riley covers LSU sports for The Daily Advertiser and the USA TODAY Sports South Region. Email him at kriley@theadvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter at @KokiRiley.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU football, Brian Kelly talk about how Tigers can upstage Alabama