So much for Brian Kelly’s master plan to eventually wean his LSU team from the transfer portal and get on with building the program the old-fashioned way.

You know what we’re talking about here — high school recruiting and only using the transfer to shore up an unexpected hole or two in the roster.

That’s the way the game’s stubborn old birds want to do it, the way it’s supposed to be done by those proud, traditional programs like LSU.

Yeah, leave those cheap short cuts, dipping left and right into the portal, to the upstarts and the new-money wannabees trying to get a foot in the door.

You don’t want to be associating with that kind of riffraff, do you?

But, hey, you do what you’ve got to do.

So maybe next year — really, cold turkey — no sniffing around the transfer portal.

But just this one more time.

That’s the way it looked to me, anyway, after the first “window” on the portal closed last week.

LSU seemed to be quite active in it for a team that doesn’t lose that much for next year and already had a highly regarded high school recruiting class assembled.

But silly me.

In reality. the Tigers, who seemed to be grabbing at every stray transfer that happened to wander across campus, sort of showed amazing restraint.

They added 11 transfers. That sounds like an awful lot of non-freshman newcomers.

It isn’t.

Maybe a decade ago. Five years, even. But not in 2023.

The Athletic website did a study of where the cards have fallen after the reshuffle now that the season’s first portal window had closed.

Adding 11 transfers, like LSU, doesn’t even crack the top 10.

Arizona State and Charlotte have already picked up 20. Of course both have new head coaches … who will soon no doubt be vowing to give the portal up for good once the coaching transformation settles down.

Of course you can’t ignore it when others are (wink-wink) raiding and kidnapping your own roster.

LSU lost 15 players to the portal’s exit door, which, again, sounded like a whole lot.

But, again, it wasn’t. Not by comparison anyway.

According to The Athletic, Texas A&M lost 25, Ole Miss lost 24, Arkansas 23 and Florida 22.

Maybe the names behind the numbers are more important, how they fit into the overall picture in terms on need.

LSU can’t complain there.

The Tigers’ depleted secondary will draw from both the portal (immediately) and the incoming high school class (long term) and the portal could patch some holes in the defensive line.

The 15 outgoing transfers lost to the portal, as big of a hit as it sounds like, will probably be about the norm going forward.

For the most part it seemed like players looking for more playing time, with little hope of getting it at LSU. The “wish them well in their future endeavors” type players.

Jack Bech would have competed for quality playing time even in a crowded wide receiver room, but he might well end up as the featured target at his new home at TCU.

It wasn’t much of a surprise that one quarterback left that crowded position room, although it was a bit of a puzzler that Walker Howard left for Ole Miss rather than waiting to see how spring practice played out. Jayden Daniels’ decision to return for a 15th year of eligibility probably decided it.

Linebacker DeMario Tolan might be the biggest loss. Even though he didn’t play much as a freshman last season, coaches have been very high on him all along and his exit (to Auburn) was a head-scratcher.

Most figured he was the Tigers’ next middle linebacker. His exit probably had the staff scrambling.

But, lo and behold, look at what the portal coughed up — Oregon State all-Pac-12 middle linebacker Omar Speights suddenly wants to be a Tiger.

Pretty convenient, that is.

Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com