By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
When the 2025-26 sports calendar year began last August, there were legitimate hopes
of LSU’s first appearance in the College Football Playoff since 2019 and maybe more.
Coach Brian Kelly faced a do-or-die year in his fourth season, because he had not
scratched the playoffs despite a $100 million, 10-year contract that demanded such.
The collective NIL powers that be had spent $20 million for the roster, truly entering the
portal game for the first time. And the result was the No. 1 transfer class in the country.
Kelly also returned senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who likely could have been a
second or third round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, if not higher. He had finished fifth
nationally in passing with 4,052 yards and 29 touchdowns for 10th in 2024.
And defensive coordinator Blake Baker entered his second season after marked
improvement in ’24 with some impressive talent.
Todd McClure, who enters @LaSportsHall on Saturday, tells Tiger Rag Radio he can’t wait to watch LSU offense under @Lane_Kiffin this season.https://t.co/8P5TEnSqoZ
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 25, 2026
But it was all over before it started, because unknown to most of the public and the
media, Nussmeier tore an oblique muscle in his abdomen in August, which rendered
him a shell of who he was in ’24 for all of 2025.
No, it wasn’t in his head as some at and close to LSU have tried to spin. It was in his back and stomach.
It was learned only last April that a cyst developed on Nussmeier’s spine last August
that caused the persistent oblique pain in his midsection that damaged his arm strength and accuracy. He
changed his mechanics to try to ease the pain and messed his skills up more.
And from Nussmeier’s core injury, everything eventually fell apart to the core of the LSU
program.
Kelly was fired the day after he was eliminated from the playoffs again with his third
loss in the previous four SEC games – 49-25 to Texas A&M at home – to fall to 5-3 overall, 2-3 in the SEC.
And Hell was only beginning. Athletic director Scott Woodward was fired four days after firing Kelly as LSU went all Shakespearean. Verge Ausberry rightfully was promoted from deputy to replace him.
But new President Wade Rousse, formerly of McNeese State who took over just a few days after the football bloodlettings, eventually brought in his deputy. That is former McNeese AD Heath Schroyer, an ex-college basketball coach, who is LSU’s new deputy athletic director, or co-AD, depending on whom you believe, just in case things don’t work out with Ausberry.
Ausberry showed his talent by hiring Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin at $90 million in late November over seven seasons before LSU finally quit dreaming and realized it had to pay all of Kelly’s $54 million buyout.
That will be minus whatever he gets from his new CBS gig as an analyst for Mountain West Conference games.
Go West and head for the Mountains.https://t.co/W6x2hD4Ipk
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 24, 2026
Meanwhile, Hell continued in the arena and on the field with men’s basketball and baseball.
Yes, LSU’s Big 3 – Football, Men’s Basketball and Baseball – proceeded to harken back to the simpler time of
1965-66 when NIL meant nil, as in nothing. And “the portal” was more associated with the NASA space program.
Bear Bryant only had two national championships at Alabama by 1965. Nick Saban was
only 13 as a freshman at Monongah High in West Virginia. And Skip Bertman, 27, was
Miami Beach High School’s baseball coach.
But LSU didn’t go Back To The Future. It went Back To The Worst.
In the 1965-66 sports year at LSU, the Big 3 went 9-29 in the SEC for a .236 winning percentage – 3-3 in football under coach Charles McClendon, 2-14 in men’s basketball under Frank Truitt and 4-12 in baseball under Jim Smith.
The 2025-26 LSU Trilogy was almost as bad as that, but clearly worse than every other year since then. And there were some bad years from 1966-67 through 2024-25, which included six straight losing seasons in football from 1989-94 and six straight in men’s basketball from 1993-94 through 1998-99. But never were all of the Big 3 as bad as they were in 2025-26 since 1965-66.
The Tigers went 15-41 combined in football, men’s basketball and baseball in the SEC last season for a .268 winning percentage in 2025-26.
-Football went 3-5 in the SEC, and Kelly was fired after the 2-3 league start.
-Men’s basketball went 3-15 in the SEC, and Matt McMahon was fired after the
season.
-And, yes, Hell even found LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson, who somehow fell to 9-21 in the SEC for the fewest LSU wins in the league ever in a season.
More hellish is this, though. LSU’s Big 3 teams were 1-30 against the SEC teams that
finished with winning SEC records last year.
The football team was 0-5, while baseball was an uncanny 0-15. Only McMahon
mustered a win over an SEC winning team in the league – 78-70 at Missouri for a 1-10
finish.
As basketball ended, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, newly appointed Board chairman Lee Mallett and other LSU power brokers quickly did what they wanted to do last year – hire former LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade. After a sleazy exit from North Carolina State after one season, LSU signed Wade for $30 million over seven years and will pay off McMahon’s $8 million buyout.
Kiffin and Wade can literally go nowhere but up in between trips to the bank.
And considering how Johnson’s new roster is looking for 2027, he will
likely make damn sure he never sees how the other half lives again.
Thank goodness for coach Kim Mulkey, who is the only one of the Big 4 to have a season not to be ashamed of as her Tigers reached the women’s basketball Sweet 16 and finished 29-6 and 12-4, including 6-6 against ranked teams.
LSU’s Big 3? They were 4-25 against ranked teams for 13 percent. The football team
was 1-5, the men’s basketball team 0-4 and baseball was a whopping 3-16.
But this year from Hell could be a cleansing burn. Costly, yes, but no one cares about that anymore.
It wasn’t planned, but what LSU did was a strategic, controlled burn of its football and men’s basketball programs as one sees professionals do in the forest to clear underbrush and improve ecosystem health. Football and men’s basketball each had deep underbrush issues and badly needed rejuvenation of their entire ecosystem.
Enter Kiffin, who has systematically instilled life into LSU quicker than any football coach in LSU history via what will likely end up as the greatest portal class ever signed with a whopping 41 players, including five who were in the top three at their position in the portal and 11 in the top 12. He doubled Kelly’s No. 1 class of a year ago as he basically signed two portal classes – one for now and one for later with 21 underclassmen. So this is a short term and a long term fix at the same time.
Even if Kiffin doesn’t make the playoffs this season, he will still be on his way. The team will be significantly improved over last season on several levels. But with that schedule that features five road SEC games, it could be an excellent, improving team and still finish 9-3, which could keep it out of the playoffs.
Considering Kiffin has the No. 17 high school recruiting class in the nation now and rising for 2027, and he finished off the No. 13 class last year, this program is all about 2027, ’28 and beyond. Just look at this season as the fun turnaround year, regardless of how it may end.
As far as Wade, he just needs to get his new Euro Tigers through customs and eligible. Then he can try to succeed in the international language – by winning – after recruiting more in the future within these borders and via high schools and by attracting higher ranked portal transfers.
Johnson’s recent portal adds and his No. 2-ranked high school recruiting class – pre-draft – appear ready to put him back on his alternate years of Omaha trips. And he’ll keep control burning Alex Box down until he cleanses 2026 out of his and everyone else’s system.
Onward to 2026-27, the Rebirth and the hopes of avoiding another program mortgage.
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