BATON ROUGE — A new era of LSU football starts in one month when the Tigers face Clemson in Death Valley on Sept. 5. 

Ahead of the 2026-27 season, Wednesday marked the first day of fall training camp for the newly led Tigers under head coach Lane Kiffin.

After practice, Kiffin spoke enthusiastically about the first day of fall camp, but acknowledged that the team "still has a lot of work to do."

A big part of training camp, Kiffin added, is "controlling what we can control." One of the things that Kiffin and his staff can control is ensuring on-field chemistry between players and getting them used to playing with each other.

"So many guys were brand new today," Kiffin said, noting that the team started camp with a shorter practice as they ramp up the program to help prevent injuries. 

One of the newer players to the Kiffin program is Arizona State transfer Sam Leavitt.

Kiffin said that Wednesday was the best the quarterback has ever looked, noting that he is becoming more comfortable with the Tigers' receiving corps. 

"His progression has been really good," Kiffin said. "He's right on pace."

Before camp started, Leavitt was recovering from a right midfoot Lisfranc injury. Kiffin said that "you wouldn't even have known that he had an injury" based on how he was moving on the practice field.

A big part of the conversation surrounding Kiffin's arrival in Baton Rouge was the excitement around him as a coaching personality. The former Ole Miss coach said that he has not engaged much with the fervor around his move to Louisiana, only saying "I hear about it." 

"When you hire a coach, you hire the energy that comes around it," Kiffin continued. "That pays off in fan support, that pays off in donations, that pays off in recruiting."

He said that top-ranked transfer portal and high school classes show that this energy is working.

When asked about how the camp's performance reflects on high expectations that the LSU fanbase has for Kiffin's tenure, the coach said that there are too many variables to determine what this means for wins during the season, a sharp departure from former coach Brian Kelly, who began the lead-up to his final season promising to go 1-0 before fall training camp even began. 

Kelly lost every prior season-opening game until last season's win over Clemson on the road. Kelly's team, however, lost several subsequent games. He was fired in October after losing against Texas A&M before the Tigers concluded their 7-6 season. 

"Expectations are extremely high here," Kiffin said. "As good as we are right now, that's only the beginning."

WATCH KIFFIN'S POST-PRACTICE NEWS CONFERENCE: