What He Said: LSU Football's Brian Kelly Irate Following Week 1 Loss to USC Trojans

Kelly and the Tigers suffer another season opening loss, undisciplined football plagues the program.

Sep 1, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; LSU Tigers coach Brian Kelly arrives before the game against the Southern California Trojans at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

LSU head coach Brian Kelly slammed his fist on the table following the Tigers' Week 1 loss in utter frustration after another season opening loss.

It was the same story for the program once again. The inability to capture a victory in the first weekend of the season continues haunting LSU after falling to the USC Trojans on Sunday.

The lack of creativity on offense in the second half, untimely penalties and inefficiency in the red zone ultimately plagued the program in Las Vegas.

"For us to be the kind of football team I want, we have to eliminate the foolish mistakes," Kelly said. "We have to be able to have a mindset that when we have an opponent down, we have to be able to have that killer instinct and then finally, we have to be able to play off of each other much better."

Kelly addressed the media following the showdown in Allegiant Stadium.

What Brian Kelly Said: Week 1 Edition

Opening Statement

"From a big picture, we didn't play complimentary football. We did some good things on the offensive side of the ball, we didn't compliment that defensively and vice versa. But the thing that's most concerning for me is the personal fouls. The penalties that are selfish. Both of them led to scores. They're undisciplined penalties and effectively they fall back on me. We take pride in running a disciplined program, but we have clearly not done a good enough job there because it impacted the game. 

"The other thing is, unfortunately, it's clear when we get up in a game, we do not know how to handle ourselves. You've got to have a killer instinct in game. We had an opportunity to put this team away and we get complacent when we're ahead. We make mistakes.

"That's disappointing. I'm angry at those things and I have to do a better job in shaping that in this group. We had guys that played hard and wanted to win and were prepared to win, but those two things just eat at me. And they've got to get fixed."

Challenges on Offense

"There's a host of situations. We had a couple false start penalties. We started behind the chains a couple of times. It wasn't probably our best execution. We don't have a cut-off on the back side on one. We don't run a route correctly. They were based solely on not being able to execute at a high level. When our best was needed offensively, we were not able to deliver. You get inside the 15-yard line three times and you come away with six points, that's going to come back to beat you. We left a lot of points up there.

Red Zone Inefficiency

"If you don't score points when you're down inside the red zone like we did tonight, you're going to lose a one-possession game. We put way too much pressure on our defense to be something they're not ready to be. We have warts and they're not going away overnight. Our offense needed to be better because we needed to score on those possessions."

Growth on Defense

"I thought our defensive tackle play was much better. I thought our edge play was better. We tackled pretty good. We were competitive. Overall, it's connected better. It's a cohesive connected group that plays hard. They played really, really hard. They didn't execute at the end as well as we would've liked, but that's probably it."

No Rushing Attack

"We could sit here and we could go look at a million different things, but we had over 400 yards in total offense. We weren't able to put the ball in the end zone when we really needed to. This is much more about being a much better and efficient offense in the red zone than it is the failings of the inability to run. We ran the ball well enough to set up the things we wanted to do. We ran the ball well enough to win this game, but you can't win games when you come away with nothing from the 3-yard line."

Penalties Plague the Tigers

"I've already commented on the two personal foul penalties. They impacted the game and they're from veterans, guys who know better and they're leaders. I have to look at myself and say I have to do better because they're not getting the message. Clearly, those two penalties impacted the game. We had a couple false starts. 10 (penalties) is too many, let's put it that way. But two personal foul penalties that set up scores is unacceptable."

Irate Following Loss

"We had some guys play their butts off tonight and we're sitting here again talking about the same things 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. I'm so angry about it that I've got to do something about it. I'm not doing a good enough job as a coach. I've got to coach them better because it's unacceptable for us not to have found a way to win this football game. It's ridiculous. It's crazy."

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