After failing to come away with a win in week one against the USC Trojans, LSU coach Brian Kelly expressed great disappointment in his team following the loss, and was not shy about the expectations he has for improvement moving forward in the 2024 season.
LSU coach Brian Kelly was not shy about his disappointment following Sunday’s loss vs. USC
For the fifth year in a row, LSU football has started off their season without a win, and coach Brian Kelly was not shy about his feelings immediately following the week one loss against Lincoln Riley and USC.
“I think this is the first time since I’ve been here that I’m pretty angry at our football team,” the Tiger head coach began.
“First of all, from a big picture, we didn’t play complimentary football. When 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 is most concerning for me are the personal fouls. The penalties that are selfish. Both of them led to scores, and they’re undisciplined penalties, and they fall back on me.”
Right from the get-go, it felt as though there was an ounce of focus missing from the LSU football team, and it only seemed to get worse throughout the next 60 minutes. In turn, the Tigers found themselves with a seemingly endless supply of penalties that would ultimately lead to 99 free yards for the Trojans of USC.
With that said, the penalties weren’t the only challenge facing the purple and gold. Even when they found themselves with a lead in the third quarter, the team struggled to find a consistent rhythm on offense, ultimately allowing Lincoln Riley and his 2024 roster to comeback and beat the Tigers by a score of 27-20.
“The other thing is, unfortunately, it’s clear that when we get up in a game, we do not know how to handle ourselves. You’ve got to have a killer instinct in this game. You’ve got to put teams away. We had an opportunity to put this team away, and we get complacent, we make more mistakes when we’re ahead instead of having a better focus and a steely eyed, killer instinct, and that’s disappointing.”
For the average football fan, it was a fantastic matchup that was filled with flashes of solid defense, elite offense, and a last second go-ahead touchdown from the Trojans that capped off a competitive night of football. Still, for coach Brian Kelly, it was a loss, and he was visibly unhappy while speaking with the media postgame.
“I have to do a better job in shaping that in this group, because we had guys that played hard tonight. We had guys that wanted to win, and were prepared to win, but those two things just eat at me, and they’ve got to get fixed.”
While there’s undoubtedly plenty of bad to fixate on following the 2024 week one LSU loss, there’s also plenty of good to keep an eye on. The defense looked abundantly improved, and many of their penalties were unforced issues that should be fixed moving ahead to week two.
The 2024 season is nowhere near over yet, and the Tigers have a fantastic opportunity to get a bounce back win in week two, as they head back home to face off against in-state Nicholls in what should be an easy win ahead of the start of SEC play.
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