Kaden Martin announced on May 23 that he's transferring to LSU from MTSU and will be on coach Lane Kiffin's first LSU football roster in the 2026 season.
Martin spent the past two football seasons at Middle Tennessee State but did not play in a game in 2024-25. He arrives at Baton Rouge with a high-school résumé that once carried heavy expectations: as Knoxville Catholic's quarterback he passed for 1,226 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2019 and added nine rushing touchdowns that season, then threw for 1,379 yards with nine touchdowns and six interceptions and rushed for nine more scores in 2020.
The numbers from his prep days include an offseason highlight as well — Martin was named a Perfect Game All-American in 2021 after setting Knoxville Catholic's baseball record with 13 home runs. He transferred to McDonogh School for his senior year, played baseball at Miami in 2022 and at ETSU in 2023, but appeared in only two games total in college baseball before concentrating on football.
The broader weight of the move is personal as much as roster-building. Martin is the son of former Tennessee star quarterback Tee Martin, and Tee Martin will be an offensive analyst at LSU after spending the last five seasons on the Baltimore Ravens staff as receivers coach and then quarterbacks coach. Lane Kiffin hired Tee Martin in March, and the hire reunites father and son on the same program; there is a statue of Tee Martin just outside Neyland Stadium commemorating his place in Tennessee history.
Context matters here. Kaden Martin has been at four schools while playing two sports. He attended Knoxville Catholic, transferred to McDonogh for his senior year, played baseball at Miami in 2022 and ETSU in 2023, and then spent two seasons on the MTSU roster before electing to transfer. His path is threaded through college baseball and football and now leads to LSU, where he will be part of the team's 2026 roster.
The tension in this story is immediate. Despite prep success and a high-profile father with deep Tennessee ties — Tee Martin was the Volunteers' quarterback on the 1998 national title team and later worked as a Vols assistant under Jeremy Pruitt in 2019-20 — Kaden did not see game action at MTSU in 2024-25 and logged only two collegiate baseball games across 2022 and 2023. That gap between early promise and recent playing time raises the core question about what role he will fill at LSU and how fast he can re-establish himself on the field.
There is also a calendar tension wired into the schedule. LSU is set to play at Tennessee on Nov. 21, turning this transfer into a potential hometown subplot: Martin grew up in the Knoxville area and played at Knoxville Catholic, and his arrival at LSU places him on the roster when the Tigers visit Neyland Stadium. The convergence of family history, a statue outside the stadium, and the son of a Vols legend now listed on an opponent's roster is the kind of storyline that will draw attention long before kickoff.
The single most consequential unanswered question is whether Kaden Martin will be on the field when LSU visits Tennessee on Nov. 21 — not merely on the roster, but playing meaningful snaps. That outcome will determine whether this transfer reads as a fresh start for a multi-sport athlete who has navigated four schools, or as another chapter in a career still searching for consistent game time.
