By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
There is nothing artificial about Artificial Intelligence, or AI, as far as progressive LSU football coach Lane Kiffin is concerned.
One of the best talent evaluation experts in college football since former Alabama coach Nick Saban retired, Kiffin has proven he can find talented players who may not always be ranked very high by the various recruiting websites.
LSU portal addition Jackson Harris, for example, is the 110th-ranked transfer and No. 25 portal wide receiver by 247sports.com. But Pro Football Focus recently ranked Harris (6-foot-3, 205 pounds) as the Southeastern Conference’s No. 1 returning receiver, Matt Moscona mentioned on his “After Further Review” talk show on 104.5 FM in Baton Rouge on Thursday.
Highest Graded Returning SEC Wide Receivers🔥 pic.twitter.com/KVjqSWhZd9
— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 25, 2026
But Kiffin is prepared to begin including AI in his talent evaluation of players.
“We’re having conversations about that,” Kiffin said on Wednesday during a question-and-answer session with the Baton Rouge Rotary Club at Tiger Stadium. “That probably sounds really strange to people. We actually had a meeting about that yesterday, because we have started to talk about using that when it comes to evaluating players, which blows my mind that it’s gotten that close to where we can do that put a film into it. And it it can give an evaluation of the player.”
Kiffin will still be using his own recruiting eye and those of his staff, but the more information the better.
“We’d still have human elements in that evaluation, but it is a really amazing resource,” he said. “I didn’t even know all it can do.”
Kiffin noticed recently that LSU pass game coordinator and receivers coach George McDonald, whom he works out with in the mornings, has been dressing better and complimented his new clothes.
“Yeah, I take a picture and send it to AI and ask it how good I look,” Kiffin said McDonald told him.
“So, it can do that,” Kiffin said.
Lane Kiffin will not have a moment in the sun this season if he takes LSU to a Sun Bowl-type postseason.
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) July 29, 2026
https://t.co/Oe0cNMxPFb
Embracing AI is similar to Kiffin’s early acceptance of Name, Image & Likeness and the new, no-sit-out transfer portal that each started in the summer of 2021. LSU and Florida, on the other hand, were slow to adapt to NIL and the new portal.
“Do you embrace it? Or do you go, ‘No, we’re not doing that, because we’re coaches, and they didn’t used to do that? The old coaches never did that,'” Kiffin said. “Well, that passes you by. If you did that, you’d still be sitting in I-formation huddling. Which we did here for a while.”
And Kiffin got a loud laugh, referencing LSU’s offenses before offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger and pass game coordinator Joe Brady went to true multi-receiver sets with three, four or five most of the time in the 2019 national championship season with quarterback Joe Burrow and head coach Ed Orgeron.
Better AI than the I-formation, which featured the quarterback-fullback-tailback in a single file line behind the center with two wide receivers. It is no longer as prominent as it was in the 1970s and ’80s because of the present day three-to-five wide receivers and one or no running backs behind the quarterback.
“AI is a good example of that,” Kiffin said. “We’re talking a lot about that.”
Kiffin, who took Alabama out of its I-formation and archaic offenses as Saban’s offensive coordinator from 2014-16, heard the same Old School comments in the early days of NIL and the new portal in 2021 and ’22 when he was at Ole Miss.
“What I’ve done is I’ve not sat around and complained about it,” he said. “And I’ve just embraced it. I said, ‘This is what it (NIL) is. How do we best maximize the situation?’ And I believe that really worked well, because when NIL started, a lot of people – administrators, people way up at universities – their first thing was, ‘It’s going to go away. We don’t need to do that. Don’t worry. It’s not going to stick.'”
Famous last words, much like astronomer/author Clifford Stoll writing in Newsweek in 1995 that the Internet wasn’t going to last, and he added neither would online shopping and digital publishing. You’re reading digital publishing now, by the way.
“I said at the time, ‘If you believe it’s going to go away and you operate that way, you’re going to have new coaches, because you’re going to have fired us, because we will have fallen behind so far that we’ll lose,'” Kiffin said. “It actually happened over time in Major League Baseball.”
Kiffin was the wide receivers coach at USC in 2002 when the Oakland Athletics won the American League West at 103-59 with a manic metrics approach on a low budget by innovative genius general manager Billy Beane, as opposed to high-priced free agents.
“That usually doesn’t work,” Kiffin said. “Now, the one time it works out, they make a movie about it.”
That was “Moneyball” in 2011 that was set in 2002 and starred Brad Pitt as Beane.
“But most of the time, it doesn’t work,” Kiffin said.
Kiffin’s money ball approach is working and may now include AI. He signed the No. 1 portal class in 2026 with 41 players and an overall roster at LSU estimated at a cost of more than $40 million. He said you have to play the NIL game and spend big to win. His No. 1 portal class at Ole Miss in 2024 helped lead his 2025 team to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff. But it’s not all about the salaries to top players.
“Part of it is NIL opportunities,” he said. “It’s not just, do they have the donor base to raise the money? It’s, do they have the NIL opportunities because of the brand of the school?”
And LSU apparently has one of the best brands in the game as it has 12 football players signed to Nike NIL deals with the next best with eight.
“So, look at the brand opportunities when you come to LSU,” Kiffin said. “It’s not just how much money do you have at LSU from donors. A player can say, ‘I can make my brand better when I go there.'”
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