Scooter Hobbs column: LSU QB drama is par the course these days
Published 11:09 am Wednesday, January 14, 2026
You can all take a deep breath now. Time to saddle up, ride off into the sunset and get on with your lives.
LSU has a quarterback.
Hallelujah!
It’s the dickens trying to play football without one, of course, and, these days, the big bonus for the Tigers is that Sam Leavitt brings dual-threat tendencies to the souped-up Lane Kiffin offense.
Those straight drop-back dinosaurs are so out of fashion. Hope you enjoyed Garrett Nussmeier. He might have been the last of that species you’ll see play at LSU.
For a while it was looking like Kiffin’s magic might have to whip up an offense without a QB 1, 2 or 3.
That could have been a problem on numerous fronts.
Mainly, even a bona fide quarterback whisperer like Kiffin needs a willing ear to whisper those rascally trick plays to.
Leavitt, whose reputation comes with something of a QB gunslinger mentality, should fit right in with Kiffin’s chicanery.
He is also symbolic of this new-age wave of college quarterbacks in that there was likely a bidding war held in his honor and — mobile in more ways than one — this will be the third stop in his quest for higher education. Michigan State and Arizona State came before LSU — and that’s just college. Tiger Rag magazine reports it took three more stops in two different states (Oregon and Utah) to get him through high school.
Oh, and remember back when the transfer portal first came into vogue? Back when high-minded coaches sort of looked down on the contraption as dirty, something to be used only to plug a leak here and there.
Kiffin never was that guy. LSU’s ex-coach, Brian Kelly, certainly was, but Kiffin always seemed to see it as a great opportunity.
He’s sure not backing down.
It’s a fluid, moving target, but by my quick count LSU has some 29 transfers signed, which doesn’t include a handful of Tigers who stuck a toe in the portal but decided to stay put.
The haul has included a little bit of every position, mostly nine receivers and four offensive linemen, also a kicker, a punter and a long snapper, with everything in between except the elusive two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree.
LSU obviously needed a lot, and likely isn’t done yet, particularly in putting together something that resembles an offensive line.
But quarterback was the big get. In some circles — most circles, actually — Leavitt was the top portal QB out there.
There were some antsy moments before the Tigers landed the signature. LSU was always the leader, but after Leavitt visited Baton Rouge early last week, he took trips to Miami and Tennessee.
Nothing came of the late visits, but LSU fans got a little taste of life with Kiffin. It seemed everybody was pulling against the Tigers to win the QB Royale.
Yes, Kiffin is delightfully polarizing like that.
But everybody should be disappointed in the Tennessee Volunteers.
UT needed a quarterback as badly as LSU did, but the Vols needed something far more important. The fans needed their pride back.
Ole Miss, even while not missing a beat in the College Football Playoff, got most of the sympathy vote when Kiffin bolted The Grove for LSU.
It’s OK to feel the Rebels’ pain.
But Tennessee has been doing a slow simmer for 16 long years — ever since that January night in 2010 when word broke that Kiffin was quitting the Vols for the Southern Cal head job.
Left them high and dry — shocked! — just when the potential was looking good in Knoxville.
The outrage turned the Tennessee campus into smoldering chaos, recalling the campus student protests of the 1960s.
So forget the love. Where’s the Big-Orange revenge?
There it was, the prime opportunity, right there for the taking with Kiffin suddenly at LSU and desperately needing a quarterback.
The Vols still need to see some karma, a little smug retribution for Kiffin, and if LSU was collateral damage caught in the crossfire, then so be it.
This was the Vols’ chance to go full-blown SEC — where It Just Means More!
Prove it.
The Vols should have been stirring up trouble for LSU, rumor-mongering on social media and all else that’s fair in love and SEC football.
It’s almost impossible to cheat in college recruiting these days, but Tennessee would have been excused if they’d dug deep into, say, the old SMU foot locker for reminders of how it used to be done under the table.
Instead, the Tennessee threat was but a mild nuisance and LSU was able to let Kiffin be Kiffin, i.e., the once and future Portal King.
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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics for the American Press. Contact him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com
