How do you know we didn't? Some kids don't want to stay home. I think some of you are deliberately obtuse.
JJ wanted to stay home. But the money was close enough, and he picked the literal single best destination possible. Hartline can look into kid's parents eyes and tell them, with verifiable data, if you let your son come here, he has a very, very, very, very, very high chance of being a first-round NFL pick. Let me rattle off the names, I might have to take a break though to catch my breath halfway through, so bare with me.
Every recruitment is different. I don't understand why, after years and years and years of this stuff, y'all can't understand that.
In JJ's individual situation, there is no more "sure thing" right now IN THE ENTIRE SPORT than an elite WR going to Taint. It just is what it is, man. I wish it weren't true, but I'm not a dumbass and I don't sugarcoat ****. They are the GOAT WR factory right now. So in his individual situation, he had a lot of feelings to stay home, but at the end of the day, he picked the sure thing. I can't blame him one bit for it.
Now, all of this has absolutely nothing to do with Brown, or anyone else. Stop making blanket statements about recruits.
FOR THIS INDIVIDUAL RECRUIT, he's from ******* Baton Rouge, LSU has a long history, both past and present, for winning and putting kids into the league. Also, for whatever reason, most of the time, there is a very strong allegiance towards the home team there. More than here. Likely due to that pesky winning part I just mentioned, but that's for another thread. He got BROKE THE **** OFF, and sat in the LSU gym to announce his decision. I'm sure he thought about Miami and A&M and Texas. But when it's **** or walk time, he was always going to LSU unless they completely botched the recruitment beyond belief.
Let this one go. We shot our shot. We missed. Mario isn't gonna stop doing this. He's going to shoot his shot on every **** kid he can. Some will go our way, most won't, that's how recruiting works. We had a much better team last year than 2023. Keep it moving in that direction, and recruiting becomes easier. But this program has been a laughing stock for THE ENTIRE LIVES of these recruits. Not some of it, all of it. We'll get our share of kids because our money is right, Mario is a sicko, and there is plenty of allure to come here. But to totally unlock this ****, you gotta win something of substance at some point to start pulling Top 10 nationally Louisiana kids out of that area, or similar.