Frank Wilson didn’t tip his hand about what comes next for him at LSU on Tuesday, but his silence shouldn’t distract from an obvious truth: Lane Kiffin would be wise to make Wilson’s return a top priority.
In an era where nearly every corner of college football has been reshaped—from playoff expansion to NIL money to the chaos of the transfer portal—some realities refuse to change. No matter how different the sport looks, LSU’s lifeblood still runs through New Orleans.
Plenty of coaches have recruited the Crescent City before Wilson, and plenty will after him. But few have built the kind of trust, familiarity, and long-standing connections that he has spent an entire career cultivating. While other coaches diagram schemes, Wilson builds relationships—walking high school hallways, shaking hands with middle school coaches, remembering family names and neighborhood histories. That’s his playbook.
And LSU has benefited. Picture recent LSU teams without the wave of New Orleans talent that shaped them. Picture a recruiting pipeline without the players Wilson helped steer to Baton Rouge—household names and rising prospects alike. The region produces elite players every single year, and Wilson has consistently been one of LSU’s strongest links to that wellspring.
This isn’t to say he does everything alone or that LSU hasn’t succeeded without him in the past. But he’s proven, he’s respected, and he understands the cultural fabric of the city in a way that can’t be quickly replicated by any new assistant coach walking through the door. If LSU lets him walk now, another program—Ole Miss, Texas, someone else—would welcome him without hesitation. And LSU could watch those same New Orleans relationships suddenly work against them.
Some critics point to LSU’s inconsistent run game and attempt to connect it to Wilson. But his track record with running backs speaks for itself, and LSU’s offensive issues have rarely stemmed from the running backs room. Put those same backs in a Lane Kiffin system, and no one’s questioning whether they’re developed correctly.
Kiffin already knows what Wilson brings to a staff; he saw it firsthand during their time together at Tennessee. Wilson didn’t simply recruit big names—he opened doors that otherwise weren’t opening.
Kevin Smith, who has been Kiffin’s right-hand man at running backs coach for years, would be a logical target for LSU and will absolutely continue to be a strong recruiter wherever he lands. But choosing Smith over Wilson would still come with real consequences. New Orleans is a relationship-driven ecosystem, and disrupting those relationships without absolute necessity would be a misstep.
LSU has been down this road before—moving on from a respected recruiter only to realize, years later, what they lost. Corey Raymond is a recent example, and the regret around that decision still lingers.
Kiffin’s early decisions at LSU will shape the next several years of the program. Retaining Frank Wilson shouldn’t be an afterthought; it should be foundational.
