LSU received bad recruiting news heading into its second straight weekend to start the 2025 season.
New Albany (Miss.) offensive lineman Emmanuel Tucker announced his flip Friday morning from the Tigers’ 2026 class to home-state Ole Miss.
“The best in the Sip stay in the Sip,” the 6-foot-7, 285-pound blocker told On3 | Rivals national recruiting reporter Hayes Fawcett.
Tucker became the second Mississippi native in less than eight days to flip his pledge from LSU to another SEC program, following Hattiesburg (Miss.) wide receiver Tristen Keys announcing his plans Aug. 28 to instead join Tennessee’s incoming class.
The big offensive lineman had initially committed to Mississippi State early this summer before a mid-June flip to to LSU that represented at the time another notable out-of-state recruiting win on offensive line coach Brad Davis’ impressive recent résumé.
But Ole Miss continued to push and appears to set now to ultimately keep Tucker home for college.
LSU coach Brian Kelly and company’s class now has now slipped to 17 total commitments — 11 in-state and six out-of-state — and outside of the nation’s top-10 classes according to the On3 | Rivals industry rankings, a weighted average of a major recruiting networks.
Up front, Davis and the Tigers still hold three pledges: a pair of in-state standouts in Brysten Martinez (East Ascension) and Jalan Chapman (Warren Easton) and another Mississippi native in Bryson Cooley of West Jones (Laurel, Miss.).
Cooley became LSU’s third 2026 commitment from Mississippi when he made his July 4 announcement, but Keys’ and Tucker’s moves now leave him as the lone remaining pledge of that group.
