Football season is heating up, but LSU’s recruiting trail has yet to catch fire.
 
Despite the LSU football team’s return to the confines of Tiger Stadium for the first time since last November, it was a relatively “slow” recruiting day for LSU coach Les Miles and his coaching staff.
 
About 15 Louisiana high school recruits — seven commitments and a handful of other uncommitted prospects  — were the only players on unofficial visits last Saturday to see LSU handle Mississippi State, 29-7.
 
“It wasn’t meant to really be a big recruiting weekend,” said Rivals.com recruiting analyst Mike Scarborough. “It’s a home opener, and they weren’t pushing to make that a big visit weekend.”
 
The already committed players included names with which most Tiger fans have become familiar. Jarvis Landry (Lutcher), Anthony “Freak” Johnson (O.P. Walker), Jeremy Hill and La’El Collins  (Redemptorist), Ronald Martin (White Castle), Paul Turner (West Monroe) and Quentin Thomas (Breaux Bridge) were all on the sideline last weekend.
 
Three other uncommitted prospects for the 2011 recruiting class were also in attendance — T.K. Fleming (Benton), Ryan Byrd (St. Helena Central) and Floyd Raven (East St. John).
 
But Scarborough said he thinks Fleming and Byrd don’t have a shot of landing at LSU.
“[They] are guys I’m not sure LSU is even going to mess with,” he said.
 
Byrd has yet to return from a broken leg he suffered last spring and Fleming was arrested in May on charges of second-degree battery.
 
One notable name for the 2013 class was on the field, though. Rickey Jefferson, younger brother of junior quarterback Jordan Jefferson, was in attendance on an unofficial visit. The younger Jefferson is a 6-foot, 180 pound wide receiver from Destrehan.
 
Shea Dixon, managing editor of TigerSportsDigest.com, agreed last weekend was expected to be uneventful.
 
“Kids are still getting into the senior year of high school season,” he said. “No one is in bye weeks yet or anything like that. Everyone is playing on Friday nights and doing film studies on Saturdays, so it’s tough for them to travel too far away from home.”
 
Both Scarborough and Dixon said the big weekend will come in two weeks when Tennessee comes to Baton Rouge.
 
Ray Drew, a defensive end from Thomasville, Ga., and Travis Hughes, a linebacker from Virginia Beach, Va. — both four-star recruits — are scheduled to make their visits Oct. 1.
 
Despite a slow beginning to the recruiting process, there is a chance two of Louisiana’s top remaining prospects will be in Tiger Stadium on an unofficial visit for this weekend’s non-conference game.
 
“West Virginia, you might get a guy like Mickey Johnson in town or Odell Beckham Jr.,” Dixon said. Johnson is a four-star defensive tackle from St. Paul’s in Covington, while Beckham is a four-star athlete from Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. Both have expressed a high level of interest in LSU so far.
 
LSU has a total of 17 prospects currently committed and will look to add six or seven more, according to Scarborough.
 
He said the biggest positions left to be addressed are a true center, a defensive tackle and a linebacker. Locking up Johnson and Hughes could help LSU from having navigate too far outside Louisiana.
 
“It’s a make it or break type deal in terms of trying to reel him in and get the top spot,” Dixon said of securing Hughes.
 
 
 
—-
Contact Sean Isabella at [email protected]