Brian Kelly critical after LSU Tigers”unacceptable” loss

Brian Kelly slammed his left fist against the table of the news conference so hard that his water bottle was close to falling over, following the No. 13 LSU Tigers dropped a 27-20 decision to the No. 23 USC Trojans on Sunday in Las Vegas.

By Paolo Uggetti

Sep 02, 2024 03:45 AM

LAS VEGAS — Brian Kelly slammed his left fist down on the news conference table so hard his water bottle nearly toppled over.

After No. thirteen LSU maintained an advantage of four points with under six minutes remaining for their opening game of the year. They defeated 27-20 to No. 23 USC on Sunday night. Kelly did not shy away from speaking about his disappointments.

“We had some guys play their butts off tonight and we’re sitting here again, we’re sitting here again talking about the same things!” Kelly stated as he hit the table. “About not finishing when you have an opponent in a position to put them away. But what we’re doing on the sideline is feeling like the game is over.”

Kelly admitted that this was the first time in his time at LSU that he’s been “angry” at his team and said it was lacking an “killer instinct.”

“I’m so irritated by it that I’ve decided to act on it. I’m not doing an enough job at being a good coach” Kelly said. “I’ve to improve my coaching because it’s unacceptably for us to not have come up with a strategy winning this soccer match. It’s ridiculous. It’s crazy.”

Despite accumulating 421 yards of offensive yardage and controlling the length in possession for six minutes by the time it ended, his team was not able to make the most of. The team’s first offensive play of the game travelled across 74 yards in 13 plays that lasted more than seven minutes, and did not yield any points. Although they were trailing for the majority in the opening halftime, LSU was able to take the lead twice in third quarter.

“Unfortunately, it’s clear that, when we get up in a game, we do not know how to handle ourselves,” Kelly stated. “You’ve got to put teams away. We had an opportunity to put this team away. We get complacent, we make more mistakes when we’re ahead instead of having a, you know, better focus and a steely eyed killer instinct. That’s disappointing.”

According to Kelly to Kelly’s point, the Tigers suffered 10 penalties for 99 yards, compared to the Trojans 6 and several of them came in crucial moments. In the game-winning drive for USC, an intentional penalty against LSU forced the Trojans in the red zone. There, they quickly scored with eight seconds remaining.

It was not only penalties that placed LSU in an awkward position to fall short. The Tigers played a ground game too had a difficult time. In the previous period, LSU offensive lineman Will Campbell had said that the Tigers would play the ball in opposition to the Trojans.

“That’s not something we’re trying to keep quiet,” Campbell stated on Tuesday. “I’m telling everybody right now. We’re going to run the football.”

At the end of the evening, LSU had only 117 yards of ground, and was forced to rely the quarterback Garrett Nussmeier to power the offense. Nussmeier was close to doing it the job, throwing over 300 yards and scoring two touchdowns, but after scoring the game-winning TD during the 3rd quarter the offense fell apart and allowed USC’s revamped defense led by the direction of coordinator D’Anton Lynn to keep the Trojans on the field with numerous key stops on third downs.

“They had every right to be confident,” Lincoln Riley spoke about LSU’s offensive line. “But so did we. We just didn’t talk about it in the media.”

Of the 13 third-downs the Tigers faced they converted the first down just five times. After scoring a decisive scoring touchdown during the third quarter the following four LSU drives led to two punts as well as a field goal, and an interception from Nussmeier that secured the win.

“For us to be the kind of football team I want, we have to eliminate the foolish mistakes,” Kelly stated. “Finally, we have to be able to play off of each other much better.”