Brian Kelly's Thoughts: Breaking Down What Went Wrong Against Alabama

Kelly remains "disappointed" in Saturday night's performance, the aftermath of losing to the Crimson Tide.

Oct 26, 2024; College Station, Texas, USA; LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly speaks with the officials during a time out in the second quarter against the LSU Tigers at Kyle Field. Mandatory Credit: Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images. / Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images

Brian Kelly and the LSU program suffered their third loss of the season after falling to the Alabama Crimson Tide 42-13 on Saturday night in Tiger Stadium.

In an abysmal performance on both sides of the ball, the Bayou Bengals will go back to the drawing boarrd to dissect what went wrong and how the program can put it behind them.

For now, Kelly and Co. are "disappointed" in the result and the fashion it came in.

Kelly addressed the media where he provided his initial reaction to the 42-13 Week 11 loss:

Kelly's Thoughts:

Brian Kelly's Initial Takeaways

"I will begin by saying what we thought would be an exciting evening turned out to be a disappointing evening. I told my team I was certainly excited coming into the game about their preparation and the way that they thought about this game, what they needed to do physically, mentally and all the things that we talked about. I was excited about their preparation. They were ready to play.

"I take ownership of not getting our guys in the right position tonight, and we just did not make the best of the opportunities that we had. There were certainly a lot of things that did not go right tonight with not being able to get off of the field on third down, turning the ball over on offense, and it just seemed there were at times some key things in the game that didn't go our way.

"It was one of those nights where you look at it and in its totality. Take nothing away from Alabama, they played very well, but we are dealing with a second loss now in the SEC, and we are on the uphill. We have got to, as coaches, put our guys in a better position to succeed.

"That is the challenge that I have. I own that, and we have got to play cleaner football. We have to get off the field. Those are the two big takeaways for me, in terms of the game itself. There were some untimely things that happened during the game that that weerer critical that really put us back relative to the game itself whether they were timely penalities or third down conversion."

Jalen Milroes Magic Crushes the Tigers

"If you are watching the game, you're like, what did these guys do for two weeks? We have a scheme to stop the quarterback. We did not get that done. So, I take responsibility for it. [Defensive coordinator Blake] Baker is not going to hide from the responsibility, but we also have to put our playerrs in position to take advantage of what they are capable of doing.

"We own it together and we have got to get it fixed. Now, we go into these last three games with the need to win all three and play better football in the month of November."

What's Next for LSU?

"I think everybody asks the same question. We are disappointed. We are disappointed in the way we pereformed. These guys are not like, 'We are out of the playoffs!' They are disappointed and I am disappointed that we did not live up to the standarsd of LSU football. That affects us more than the damn playoffs. When you put on the jersey for LSU, there's a standard of football. Those three letters is a prerequisite and we did not live up to that. That is the disappointment."

Changing the Trajectory of the Program:

"Well, deficiency's a relative term, right? I mean we just beat Ole Miss here in a great game, that beat Georgia. We went on the road and beat a really good South Carolina team that had a great victory against A&M. So, playing in the SEC is a dog fight. We did not play up to our standards tonight. Fixing is a relative term, right? We have to do some hard thinking relative to how do we put our kids in a better position to succeed, and then quite frankly, take care of the football. We've got six turnovers in the last two games. If i told you you're going to turn over the ball six times against A&M and Alabama, how do you feel about that? I'd say not really good. As well as, you know, we've got to get off the field and stop the running quarterback. So, those, when you break it down are really the big things that we'll be looking at."

Players' Body Language:

"No. No. No, I mean, those guys kept fighting, kept playing. You saw, we scored with what? 11 seconds to go? I think that's probably a pretty good indication. They blitzed seven against us with 22 seconds to go. They didn't quit. We didn't quit. We kept playing. We didn't look at the scoreboard. They didn't, obviously, look at the scoreboard. They didn't want us to score. Nussmeier got knocked down and got a personal foul penalty with about a minute to go in the game. That was two teams still playing right to the very end."

Third Down Miscues:

"Oh man, I'd have to go back and look at it. Third down is about first of all, staying out of third down and long. You konw, as you know the national percentages of success on third down are about 40-percent. So stay out of third-and-long, generally speaking. Some of it is about decision making. Some of it about blitz protections. Some of it is a little bit all that. We've been really good in third down situations, traditionally during the year. I think the turnover really put us back. The facemask penalty was a momentum killer for us in the game. I could like sit here, the bottom line is we didn't play to the standard of LSU football, that's on me. I've got to make sure that we put our players in better positions to succeed and that's the work I'll do. Third down is - and I'm not poo-pooing the question, but third down is something that I think we can work through and continue to get better at."

Red Zone Inefficiency:

"You know, red zone is about, at the end of the day, having a great running game, where you just chew people up in the running game, or you've got a veteran quarterback that is smart, savvy, experienced, and I've had both. Garrett's getting there. He's a first year starter, he's learning the ropes. We've been just okay running the ball that's why we've have our......[inaudible] in the short field areas."

Turnover Woes:

"Well, you know, the first turnover is mechanical in the sense that we had the ball in one hand. Quarterbacks when they get flushed out of the pocket and Garrett will tell you this, he should've had a second hand on the football. However, we had a young guy in there. We missed the protection, he got flushed, hence we can sit here again and talk about all the particulars. The bottom line is we turned the football over. We've got to go back, we've got to work on that and we've got to get two hands on the football. Those are fundamentals. That's on me. That's on coaching. We've got to coach better and make sure that that gets done.

The second one was back in coverage and unfortunately I have seen that interecption way too many times in my career. It is a free linebacker that can just drop and you have to play with touch and throw to the back line and we just didn't do it there. I feel like I'm standing here trying to make excuses and I don't want to do that. We've got to coach better in those situations."

Not Living Up to the LSU Standard:

"Well, I think I talked about it a little bit, right? The inability to get off the field on third down was tactical in some instances, not being leveraged on the football in the right way. Again, it wasn't for a lack effort. It wasn't for a lack of want to. We have to continue to work with the guys that we have out there. We have a lot of young players out there. Whether it's freshman running backs, a freshman playing the nickel position or a first year starter here or there. We just can't make excuses and we've got to just keep working with them and keep coaching them. They were ready to play, but we've got some inexperience that we have to keep working with and we've got to put them in better positions to succeed and that's on me."

The Penalties:

"So we had two holding penalties, right? I think we all would agree that holding penalties become what did I see or what didn't I see on that play. The facemask penalty? Was it a facemask? I don't know. [It was]. Okay. So you were there. You saw it. You were on the field. Did you get the instant replay? Ripped his head off? By rule he grabbed his facemask and jerked his helmet inside out? He grabbed it? Okay, good. Glad we could get confirmation. Anyway, look. I think the only one that I was upset with maybe the late push with Swinson, but you know, it's like anything else, right? The other guy was giving him the business and he was the last one to get caught. Other than that, we didn't have a lot of presnap penalties. We didn't have a lot of PIs or holdings. It didn't seem sloppy to me. We might of had a frustration penalty late in the game. That's kind of how I saw it, maybe I'm wrong. I don't leave this game going 'man we've got to clean up these penalties'. I leave this game going 'We've got to put our kids in a better position to succeed'. That's on me, our coaches, we've got to coach them better because that's who we've got. There's some inexperienced players out there that are going to continue to play for us and we've got to put them in better positions to succeed."

Fans Throwing Debris:

"If I were our fans, I wouldn't be happy. I'm not advocating that you throw anything on the field. I think it's like any venue. I think you should use good judgement, but I wouldn't be happy if I was watching us play. I wasn't pleased with the way I coached or played either."

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