LSU Football: Tigers Miss out on Another Top Quarterback Recruit

Les Miles and his coaching staff know how important it is for LSU to land a top-notch quarterback in their 2013 recruiting class.

But for some reason, successfully recruiting the quarterback position has not been easy for this LSU team as of late.

After four years of mediocre quarterback play from Jarrett Lee and Jordan Jefferson, Miles and his staff believed they landed their signal-caller of the future when top-rated QB prospect Gunner Kiel verbally committed to the Tigers in late December.

Then, in an unforeseen change of events, Kiel enrolled early at Notre Dame and left Miles and the LSU football program in the dust.

Since that point, Miles has made it a point to land a highly touted quarterback for 2013, but his plans are already backfiring.

It started exactly one month ago, when 4-star QB prospect J.T. Barrett of Wichita Falls, Texas, pledged his skills to Ohio State instead of LSU. Shortly after that, it was Connor Mitch, another 4-star QB product from Raleigh, N.C. who had LSU high on his list, but chose to sign with SEC foe South Carolina instead of enrolling in Baton Rouge.

To add insult to injury, quarterback Cooper Bateman of Salt Lake City, Utah, committed to SEC rival Alabama this week, despite listing LSU as one of his finalists. Bateman was another 4-star prospect who was ranked as the No. 6 pro-style quarterback in the nation, according to Rivals.com.

LSU quarterbacks coach Steve Kragthorpe recruited Bateman heavily.

As it stands right now, it looks like Riley Ferguson (Matthews, N.C.), Cord Sandberg (Bradenton, Fla.) and Jeremy Johnson (Montgomery, Ala.) are the remaining quarterbacks on the Tigers' wish list for 2013.

Whether they are able to land one of those top-notch prospects and put an end to this drought remains to be seen.