LSU Up to 11 Total Portal Additions

4 days ago 2

The transfer portal has been working overtime the past few days, and LSU has added—at the time of this writing at least—six more players since Tuesday, and some of them have been pretty impactful additions.

If we’re working in chronological order, the first addition that LSU made dating back to Tuesday was Boise State safety Ty Benefield, the No. 2 ranked safety in the portal and a top-35 overall player. This year with Boise, Benefield was credited with 105 tackles, 8.5 TFLs, and intercepted two passes. Benefield was named the defensive MVP in Boise State’s Mountain West Championship Game win over UNLV and was also First-Team All-MWC this season.

I’m curious to see where Benefield primarily spends his time in the LSU secondary. The Tigers will need to replace both AJ Haulcy and Harold Perkins, but retain Tamarcu Cooley and Dashawn Spears. Will Benefield be Haulcy’s replacement or will he be the next STAR in 2026? And if he’s the former, which one of Cooley or Spears would move down closer to the line of scrimmage?

LSU added a second marquee defensive player out of the portal on Tuesday: former Clemson defensive lineman Stephiylan Green, who goes from one Death Valley to the other.

Green was a four-star, top-2oo prospect coming out of high school, and per 247’s Transfer Rankings is viewed a the No. 9 defensive tackle in the portal. In three years with the other Tigers, Green accounted for 34 tackles, five TFLs and 3.5 sacks; in the season opener Green made six tackles.

While LSU’s focus needs to be restocking…well, every position on offense, the Tigers do need to add some defensive tackles. Jacobian Guillory and Bernard Gooden have exhausted their eligibility, while Ahmad Breaux recently announced he is transferring to Kentucky. Green figures to be, at the very least, heavily involved with the defensive tackle rotation, if not a Day One starter alongside Dom McKinley.

LSU’s next portal addition doesn’t quite pop off the screen the same way Benefield and Green do, but the Tigers are just so thin at running back that any addition is welcome. Enter Charlotte running back Rod Gainey.

Gainey was a three-star running back coming out of Tampa, and in two years with Charlotte has 74 carries for 260 yards, and a touchdown. He’s also caught 16 passes for 44 yards. A redshirt sophomore in 2025, Gainey will come to LSU with two years of eligibility remaining.

I don’t want to be a victim of star-gazing here, but I’m not really sure I understand this addition. Gainey’s the second running back LSU’s added out of the portal (Utah’s Raycine Guillory being the other) and both backs are on the smaller side and, more crucially, unproven. It’s pretty obvious Harlem Berry will get the bulk of the carries next season, so maybe LSU wasn’t looking for a “bigger” name. Or maybe one of Guillory or Gainey ends up being a diamond in the rough and the coaching staff is able to get the best out of one of them to be a true compliment to Berry.

LSU may not have gotten big names at running back, but they are killing it at wide receiver. On top of adding Tre’ Brown and Jackson Harris, the Tigers added some marquee wide receivers: Tre Wilson III today and Jayce Brown yesterday.

Brown is viewed as the No. 3 wide receiver in the portal. The former Kansas State Wildcat has 115 career catches for 2,133 yards, and 15 touchdowns, and you can probably go ahead and pencil him as WR1 this fall. Wilson, on the other hand, is the No. 9 wide receiver in the portal, and the former Florida Gator has 107 catches for 1,043 yards and 10 touchdowns.

LSU also added a punter, Hayden Craig, on Wednesday, which is weird because Grant Chadwick is still here. They also added long snapper Mack Mulhern, both of whom were Florida Gators this past season. Both Craig and Mulhern are following Joe Houston, LSU’s new special teams coordinator, from Gainsville to Baton Rouge.

The Tigers are now up to 10 portal additions, and they have room to add a whole lot more. Most estimate LSU’s going to finish with about 30 additions, so you’re looking at almost two dozen more. They still need offensive linemen (plural) and they need quarterbacks (plural).

Speaking of quarterbacks…boy it’s messy out there. The short of it is, LSU had former Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt in for a visit and his commitment was all but locked up…and now instead it looks like they’re pivoting to Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. The complication is Williams signed a deal with Washington to return in 2026 just a few days ago, put his name into the portal with a do not contact tag with all signs pointing toward LSU and now the Huskies are raising hell about it. Washington is refusing to put his name into the portal and are apparently threatening—gasp—legal action.

Welcome to college football in 2026.

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