Ad Disclosure
LSU vaulted up the recruiting rankings on National Signing Day, finishing off a late run that included pulling in four four-star commits in the final week of the recruiting cycle. Once LSU’s 25-player class was made official, Les Miles met with the media.
Here’s what Miles had to say. The transcript of Miles’ press conference was provided by LSU Athletics.
Opening statement:
When you represent LSU, you represent a great state and a great school, future years, and a number of professors that would volunteer their time to come over and meet with our prospects and introduce their curriculum. I think the environment is very — it’s a great opportunity for our players.
So the experience, graduation in the 70 percentile, averaging ten‑win victories and playing for championships, how they are treated throughout the day, expected to do right and compete in a classroom; the enjoyment of being here and playing ball, and the opportunity to improve their skills and play in the NFL ‑‑ all those things lead to a very quality recruiting class.
The first group of people that must say to your prospects that they are enjoying their team and it’s important to them that they like it here, your players. They are our strongest advocates.
I enjoy the fact that there are a number of brother teams on our team. Leonard and Lanard Fournette, Blake and Reed Ferguson, and Maea and Sione Teuhema; those guys follow a brother to school here. Tells you that what they think of their experience.
The assistant coaches, dedicated to overnight stays, seven days a week, certainly representing LSU football and the brand as well as they can. Their children, their wives, don’t see them. They show up on the weekends and recruit, and those wives and children come alongside their program very effectively. Certainly without them, we would not have success.
The recruiting staff, Frank Wilson has done a great job as our coordinator, has great overview, just a tireless worker. Austin Thomas, a guy that handles our on‑site recruiting and on‑site video, just is a tremendous asset to us. Sharon Lewis who handles the recruitment weekends and again, very, very talented people in service of our school.
New staff, Kevin Steele and Ed Orgeron added a lot of energy to this recruiting class. What happens many times in recruiting, it’s not necessarily the position coach. It is the overall energy of the staff and the willingness to come alongside somebody that’s not in your position.
But I have to be honest, it’s just a lot of fun to follow Ed around. He’s got a nice want and effort to represent the Tigers. He’s from Louisiana and he couldn’t hide it in he tried. He did a great job for us.
As you look at some performances by assistant coaches, Jeff Grimes did a great job. We signed five offensive linemen and Grimes was a point guy on all of them. Just really did a great job.
And Corey Raymond obviously handles a lot of our defensive backs and again, he stepped in and just represented LSU team extremely well.
Adam Henry and Cam Cameron came alongside the wide receivers and the quarterback that we signed; Steve Ensminger worked on Maea Teuhema and these tight ends. Bradley Dale Peveto assisted a number of guys and ends up with our punter from Australia.
Annually we give in this state, the players in this state, the opportunity to play in front of friends and families in our stadium at LSU. We think it’s our first responsibility. We took 15 players from the State of Louisiana, seven of the Top‑10 players in Louisiana and for the first time, we took consecutive No. 1 players in the state.
On missing on a linebacker, presumably Leo Lewis, who signed with Mississippi State:
Yeah, well, it was more of a — certainly we missed on a linebacker that we thought we had as we went into the recruiting, the end of recruiting.
But you know, when you change staff, there’s a point in time where there’s some guys who had made relations and relationships with some of our old coaches and when they left, so did their interest in the school. And so we made our case as best we could but what will end up having to happen is certainly next year’s class will have to be a very, very heavy linebacker class.
On instituting an “early signing period”:
I think it’s the only way to go. I think I would not ever change the calendar. So I am absolutely for — I think it makes sense. I think the commit/decommit stuff that happens will be minimized. A player says I’m coming, I’m committed; and now, instead of decommitting, he’s got the opportunity to sign and be a part, or, he says, no, I’m going to take my official visits and I’m going to go on and I think that’s exactly the way it ought to go.
On the coaching staff’s performance:
To me the key piece is in a year, you’re going to see how good they recruit because they will have relationships that they will carry over for a solid year and then they will have an opportunity to have those men sign with us, first and foremost. But both of those guys know the brand at LSU. Both of those guys played against us. Both of those guys had an opportunity to grow up in and around this program, and Ed Orgeron is having a blast being an LSU Tiger and coaching for us, and Kevin Steele is, as well.
It really was a very natural fit in recruiting. Both guys, professional, know how to do it, and again, very happily Tigers.
A former freelance journalist from Philadelphia, Brett has made the trek down to SEC country to cover the greatest conference in college football.
