Flip season comes for everyone eventually and on Thursday night it came for LSU football in the worst way possible. The nation’s top overall prospect, QB Bryce Underwood, flipped from the Tigers and opted to commit to Michigan, the hometown team.
The move came as Michigan put together a strong NIL offer and LSU struggled on the field. But we’re not here to pinpoint why LSU lost Underwood. We’re not here to play the blame game.
Let’s just look at where LSU goes from here — in the current recruiting class and on the field in 2025.
Underwood provided LSU with a safety net if current LSU starter [autotag]Garrett Nussmeier[/autotag] declared for the NFL Draft. Now, LSU must keep Nussmeier in the fold for 2025.
That’s looking more likely after Nussmeier’s struggles in recent weeks. After a strong first seven games, Nussmeier was climbing NFL draft boards but the heat has since cooled.
If Nussmeier leaves, LSU is left with three scholarship QBs on the roster. There’s AJ Swann, who has starting experience from his time at Vanderbilt. Ricky Collins, a former blue-chip, will be entering year three. Colin Hurley is there too after arriving a year early this fall.
Hurley is too young to compete for the starting spot and Swann didn’t offer much promise at Vanderbilt. There’s optimism surrounding Collins, but he arrived as a talented but raw player, and you can’t put all your eggs in that basket.
LSU would be forced to go hunting in the portal if Nussmeier declares. In that scenario, LSU needs to go all out and find the next big thing. If there’s a Jayden Daniels or Cam Ward out there, LSU needs to land that player.
But the Underwood recruitment proved LSU doesn’t have the resources to go out and get whoever they want, so the reliable path is ensuring Nussmeier returns.
As for the 2025 class, there’s not much out there. The vast majority of QB prospects worth LSU’s time are already committed. LSU was locked in with Underwood, so the staff didn’t spend the last year building relationships with other QBs.
There was no backup plan — nobody thought there needed to be.
It wouldn’t be a shock to see LSU go after a young transfer QB. We’ve seen coveted players take chances on schools, even if it meant potentially sitting for a year.
LSU will do its best to sell a transfer on the success of previous portal additions like [autotag]Joe Burrow[/autotag] and [autotag]Jayden Daniels[/autotag]. That’s all LSU can do at this point.