LSU Football's Brian Kelly: 'The SEC is Loaded Again'

Brian Kelly and the LSU Tigers open SEC play on Saturday, hop on a flight to South Carolina this week.

Head Coach Brian Kelly as the LSU Tigers take on the Nicholls Colonels at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, LA. Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. / SCOTT CLAUSE/USA TODAY Network / USA TODAY NETWORK

Brian Kelly and the LSU Tigers begin SEC play on Saturday morning against the South Carolina Gamecocks with the program preparing for another "gauntlet" of a schedule in the conference.

LSU will hit the road to Columbia on Saturday for the SEC opener, but have a favorable schedule for the rest of conference play.

The Bayou Bengals will host Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma with the remaining away games being at Florida and Texas A&M.

Kelly hopped on The Paul Finebaum Show to discuss the conference, challengies that lie ahead and the depth of the SEC:

“Yeah, the SEC is loaded again,” Kelly said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “Look, I think we knew right from the very beginning that this year, more than maybe any that I can remember, that there wasn’t just one team. There are some great teams in this league. There’s no doubt. I mean, you still got to go through Georgia, but Texas has shown itself obviously now as a new member, Alabama is going to be formidable. 

“But Ole Miss and what they’re doing early on, you know, Tennessee’s had a great win. This is the depth of this league. It’s (what makes) this the best league in the country, and so each week is going to be a slugfest and now look. I mean little old LSU and little old South Carolina are playing and people don’t even care about it, but these are two pretty good teams too so we’ll see what happens at the end of the day.”

#LSU RB John Emery has started rehab following an ACL tear he suffered early last week.

Now, the focus has shifted to life outside of football.

“He knows he has a life outside of football and now he’s going to be working towards that.”

(🎥: @finebaum) pic.twitter.com/SthMzIkEQZ

— Zack Nagy (@znagy20) September 10, 2024

Heading into Week 3, all focus is on South Carolina and the challenges that lie ahead with Shane Beamer's club.

ESPN's College GameDay will be in town with all eyes on the Tigers and Gamecocks on Saturday morning with kickoff slated for 11 a.m. CT.

“I was on the plane and my wife had talked to somebody that knew somebody that knew somebody,” Beamer said. “One of those type things. She said, ‘I think you’re getting GameDay.’ I’m like, ‘huh? You think that or you know that?’ She kind of told me what she had heard. I found out as we were getting ready for land. I pulled my phone out of my bag and we hadn’t even hit the ground yet. I was trying to find scores of some conference games because this freaking ABC or DirecTV and Disney dispute is killing me.

“We fly Delta and they’ve got DirecTV, so I couldn’t watch any of the games on the TV on the back of the seat. I really didn’t want to log into WiFi and all that stuff. So I was watching the NBC we could pick up. We need to get this DirecTV dispute figured out, please. As I picked up my phone, I was scrolling through social media and it came up before we hit the ground, So right before we landed is when I found out.”

LSU will hop on a flight to Columbia later this week to take on the South Carolina Gamecocks with kickoff set for 11 a.m. CT in both programs SEC openers.

More LSU News:

Instant Takeaways: LSU Takes Down Nicholls State 44-21 in Week 2

Five-Star LSU Commit DJ Pickett Visits ACC Program in Week 2

Nick Saban Calls LSU Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier a "Sleeper" Ahead of 2024 Season

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