LAS VEGAS — For most coaches, Week 1 is about shaking off the rust, giving young players their first game reps, and hopefully securing a win to start the season 1-0.
For LSU’s Brian Kelly, however, Week 1 has turned into a recurring existential crisis.
Late Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium, Kelly faced questions from the media after suffering his third consecutive season-opening loss at a neutral site. This latest defeat, a last-second 27-20 heartbreaker against No. 23 USC, quickly revealed his frustration with the outcome.
Kelly's first words were a candid admission: “This is the first time since I’ve been here at LSU that I’m angry at my football team.” He pointed to a couple of costly late-game unsportsmanlike penalties and the team’s failure to close out the game as the main issues.
A few minutes later, while responding to a follow-up question, Kelly slammed his fist on the table, jolting a few drowsy sportswriters back to attention. His voice escalated as he expressed his frustration.
“We’re sitting here AGAIN, talking about the same issues—about not finishing when you have an opponent in a position to be put away,” Kelly said. “On the sideline, we’re acting like the game is over, and I’m so angry about it that I need to do something. I’m not doing a good enough job as a coach. I need to coach them better because it’s unacceptable not to have found a way to win this game.”
“It’s ridiculous.”
To be clear, this was after the first game of the season.
Despite Kelly’s frustration, the Tigers performed reasonably well Sunday night. Unlike the disastrous 2022 Florida State game in New Orleans, Kelly’s LSU debut, where they lost 24-23 due to a blocked extra point, or the 2023 rematch in Orlando, where they suffered a 45-24 rout, this game was a tight contest. Both teams were navigating new territories after losing their Heisman-winning quarterbacks—USC’s Caleb Williams and LSU’s Jayden Daniels. Lincoln Riley’s Trojans displayed a much-improved defense, effectively tackling ball carriers and limiting explosive plays. Kelly’s defense, which struggled last season, allowed a moderate 7.5 yards per play but was solid enough to maintain a 17-13 lead late into the fourth quarter.
Then everything unraveled.
After stopping USC on a fourth down in LSU territory with 8:38 remaining, LSU safety Major Burns was flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, pushing the Tigers back to their own 21-yard line. Coach Brian Kelly was seen having an extended conversation with Burns on the sideline. LSU then went three-and-out and punted back to USC. On the ensuing drive, Trojans quarterback Miller Moss connected with Ja’Kobi Lane for a stunning 28-yard touchdown pass, putting USC ahead 20-17 with 5:44 left.
LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who had a strong game going 29 of 38 for 304 yards, managed to drive his team from their own 20 to the USC 14 but missed a wide-open Aaron Anderson, who could have secured at least another first down. The Tigers settled for a game-tying 31-yard field goal with 1:47 remaining.
You probably know how it ended.
USC appeared ready to settle for a game-winning field goal attempt until Moss found receiver Kyron Hudson for a remarkable 20-yard catch down the sideline. This, combined with a targeting penalty on LSU’s Jardin Gilbert, advanced the Trojans to the LSU 13 with 18 seconds left.
USC tailback Woody Marks then took a handoff up the middle for the winning score. Kelly’s expression on the sidelines seemed to mix bewilderment with resignation. “It’s clear that when we get up in a game, we do not know how to handle ourselves,” Kelly said afterward. “You’ve got to have that killer instinct in this game. You’ve got to put teams away. We had an opportunity to put this team away, and we got complacent.”
Normally, in these situations, coaches remind us that the season is long, there’s time to correct mistakes, and so on. Kelly, however, skipped that reassurance. So, let me personally remind LSU’s coach: It’s a long season ahead. You’ve got time to address these issues. Don’t panic too much. Unfortunately, he already did.
“To be the kind of football team I want, we have to eliminate the foolish mistakes,” he said. “We have to have a mindset of, when we have an opponent down, we need to finish them off. And we need to play more cohesively.”
Did we mention his team has only played one game?
Kelly made an intriguing comment about the Tigers' failure to play complementary football. He remarked, “We put way too much pressure on our defense to be something they’re not ready to be. They battled, but we have warts, and they’re not going away overnight.”
This brought to mind Kelly’s candid remarks after the spring transfer portal closed without LSU adding any defensive tackles, despite expectations. “We’re not in the market of buying players,” Kelly told WAFB-TV, which some interpreted as a preemptive excuse if the Tigers’ defense, which ranked 109th in the FBS last season, didn’t show significant improvement.
His comments on Sunday night seemed to suggest he was somewhat surprised that his defense held a Lincoln Riley offense, featuring Moss and star receivers Zachariah Branch, Kyron Hudson, and Ja’Kobi Lane, to “only” three touchdowns. Yet, it still wasn’t enough.
“I thought our defense took a step forward from last year,” Kelly said. “But we need to support them better. We can’t keep going three-and-out and putting them back on the field.”
This moment in 2024 felt eerily familiar, like it could have been 2014 or any year in between. Kelly has secured at least 10 wins in each of the past seven seasons (five with Notre Dame, two with LSU), yet these big-game letdowns seem more like a pattern than anomalies.
Notre Dame fans largely came to terms with it, given the Irish’s lack of sustained success for decades. LSU, however, has seen its last three coaches win national championships (and has fired the previous two). Tigers fans, who dominated Las Vegas only to be disappointed once again, will not be so patient if this trend continues.
No amount of tough talk or motivational speeches will console them.
(Photo: Candice Ward / Getty Images)
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