Six Wins, No Bowl, And A Roster About To Turn Over Completely

Reporter: Three straight years now with a top-2 pass defense and a bottom-10 run defense. At what point does that stop being a trade-off and start being the identity?

Graves: It's been the identity since day one. I said that in my first press conference here. Three years of the numbers backing it up doesn't change the plan, it confirms it. The day that run defense comes up to league-average, that's when people are going to say I finally fixed something. I'd tell them it was never broken, it was just the other half of a bet.

Reporter: A true freshman took over your offense mid-season and you still missed the bowl. How do you explain that to a locker room?

Graves: I don't explain it, I own it. We were 1-4 before Foxworth took over and 5-2 after. That's on the players who adjusted and a kid who wasn't supposed to be ready yet. The bowl thing stings, but it doesn't change who we are or how we got the record we got. We'll be back here next year with the same two rules and a quarterback who's got a full season under him now instead of half of one.

Reporter: Two transfer portal names are already the headline of this offseason. What made Flowers and Jones the priorities?

Graves: J'Vari Flowers is a name I've wanted on this roster since he was in high school — we lost him to Georgia the first time around, and getting him back through the portal as the No. 5 overall transfer in the country isn't something I take for granted. Ricardo Jones we went after the moment LSU's safety room opened up. He's already drawn preseason All-Conference buzz and he hasn't played a down here yet.

Reporter: On the high school side, who were your real targets, and who's the sleeper?

Graves: Will Johnston, Jaelen McCracken, Danny Johnson — three four-stars, the most we've landed outside of 2027's class. McCracken's position ranking is the best any of our high school signees has carried in, behind only Shelton. The one nobody's talking about is Deshawn Hall, a three-star corner out of Louisiana. We think he starts for us before people expect.

Reporter: Any misses this cycle you're still thinking about?

Graves: Jonathan Bowen, a tackle out of Louisiana, ended up at Alabama. That one hurts more than most — a kid from this state, and we couldn't get him to stay home. Losing Cole Houston to LSU stung the same way. The in-state battle is still the hardest one we fight every single cycle.

Reporter: Twenty-one players are gone off this roster, the biggest turnover this program has had. Is that a number that worries you?

Graves: It's a lot at once, no way around that. Coby Buncom and DJ Hill-Smith both earned the NFL Draft out of our secondary, and I'm proud of both of them. Losing Ty Wilson and Torren Lockhart to the portal stings more, because those are guys who still had a role here. But when you've got fifteen seniors graduating in one class, that's not a crisis, that's a program that's been recruiting and developing the right way for a few years running. You reload. That's the job.

Three seasons in, the pattern keeps repeating with variations: a rough start salvaged by a midseason answer, a national rushing leader who can't crack the Heisman conversation, and a run defense that simply will not move. What's different this time is the scale of what's walking out the door — twenty-one players, including two All-Conference starters and a full offensive line's worth of experience — right as the recruiting department is producing its best class in program history. The 2028 preview is where all of that gets weighed against each other.