EDITOR’S NOTE: Tonight’s LSU-UAB game will not finish before press time and will not appear in Sunday’s edition. For game coverage, visit americanpress.com/sports

Before its final home game against Alabama-Birmingham tonight, LSU will honor 17 seniors.

More or less.

Welcome to Senior Night in college football’s post-pandemic Age of the Transfer Portal.

Paying tribute to seniors is something of a moving target, with class designations fuzzy at best. Plus, nobody lost a year of eligibility during the 2020 pandemic season. LSU always loses some juniors to early entry for the NFL draft.

So it’s anybody’s guess how many LSU players will be suiting up in Tiger Stadium for the last time.

“A lot of these guys have already graduated,” LSU head coach Brian Kelly said. “Some haven’t. Some may want to come back. Some don’t want to be part of the celebration because they are or might want to come back.

“It’s a little bit of both.”

Kelly indicated that he would be in favor of honoring juniors who know they’re leaving for the draft, but as of today none have declared for the draft.

“We’ve got a pretty good understanding,” he said. “I think some guys over the next week or two will make public announcements what their intentions are.”

But Kelly’s first senior class — few of whom were recruited by him — will take the field, well ahead of most expectations, as Southeastern Conference West Division champions.

“Our mission is to graduate champions and we’ll be able to live up to that creed,” Kelly said.

Some, he said, were bigger success stories than others, off the field and on.

“Stories like Micah Baskerville,” Kelly said of the linebacker who is the Tigers’ leading tackler with 63.

But that’s not what Kelly will remember about Baskerville, who is one of those new-age five-year lettermen.

He might be one of Kelly’s biggest success stories.

“When I got here, everybody was like, ‘Well, you know, he doesn’t go to class, he doesn’t do this, he doesn’t do that …

“And he’s been amazing. He’s gotten his degree. He’s been a great leader. He’s been inspirational in everything he’s done.

“I love that story, to watch him grow and do the right things in the classroom to overcome all the things that were in his past.”

Baskerville, out of Evangel Christian in Shreveport, could always produce on the field. He was the Tigers’ leading tackler last year too.

But he didn’t start the first four games this season.

“Then along the way he started to feel really good about his academics and getting his degree,” Kelly said. “It was important to him. I think empowering him to believe he could do it … and holding him accountable gave him the belief, the trust … that he could be a center point of what we did defensively.

“That to me is this senior class, and watching them become SEC West champions is so gratifying.

“They made that choice. They could have been average, they could have been poor or they could have been just good. They’ve chosen to be champions.”

The Tigers (8-2, 6-1 SEC) will go to Atlanta as division champions regardless of what happens against UAB (5-5, 3-5 Conference USA) tonight or at Texas A&M next week.

But to have any chance of slipping into the College Football Playoff field, they’ll have to win out, including an upset of No. 1 Georgia in the SEC title game.

“As we’re climbing the ladder in development of the program, these games are so pivotal for us,” Kelly said.