Everything Brian Kelly said after LSU’s SEC West-clinching win over Arkansas

“I’ll start by saying that it’s hard to win in the SEC, that was evident today. I could go through a laundry list of things that we have to do better, but the fact of the matter is our guys wanted to win, they were prepared to win, they were prepared to play a team that was coming off a disappointing loss, and we knew they were going to play hard today and they did, it’s a well-coached football team. Sam Pittman does a great job. I thought Barry Odom was calling a great game defensively, their team was prepared and they were a great challenge for us today. But we found a way to win on the road, and that’s really what this is about in terms of when you play in a league like this… find a way to win, and that’s what I’m proud of… Our guys having the mental toughness to battle and find a way to win a football game when we were challenged the way we were today.”

“I’m not sitting here disappointed, I’m excited that we won the footbal game in a very difficult environment… we’re in a different realm now, we’re being hunted, and we’re going to get everybody’s best shot, and they understand that. We’ve got some things to work on, and we’ll enjoy this victory, and we’ll come back prepared for UAB and senior night.”

“Eight tackles, four sacks, two forced fumbles, all over the field. Impacted the game obviously to the level that we win the game, because of his final play too. Multidimensional player, makes a great play in pass coverage getting under a throw late in the game. I don’t think there’s enough superlatives to talk about this young man as a true freshman coming into his own, you can imagine that he was awarded the game ball.”

“He got sick before the game, threw up as we were going into our team meeting. I said, ‘Hey, MJ threw up when he had his greatest game,’ he said, ‘Who’s MJ?’ I was like, ‘Man I am getting so old,’ but yeah, he’s pretty special.

“(Asked about illness): “Flu. No problem, four sacks.”

“A lot of multiple looks, he was hesitent. He just didn’t have that aggressiveness that he needed, he wasn’t sure in some things. We’ve got to do a better job coaching him and he’s got to be more assertive. They did a lot of things defensively that I though were really good. Two or three times we had wide open receivers, we’d run play-action bang routes and draw the backers up inside and they’d rally back out and get a hand on it and knock down some short touchdown passes. They played really well, we’ve got to get better at coaching the position, and they did a really good job defensively.”

“I think his ability to drop in coverage, we saw that today, being in the right place and gap responisibility. There were times earlier in the year where he’d just cut a gap loose and you’d have some big runs. He’s so much more gap-conscious in terms of making sure that he’s fitting the plays the right way. Sometimes he’d run around things, be in the wrong gap, just that trust factor is really big now.”

“Oh yeah, but you still have to find ways to make plays and win these games at the end. We’re far from a finished product, I don’t think anybody’s in there feeling like ‘we’ve arrived,’ we’ve got a lot of work to do. But during this journey, we’re still finding ways to win football games. I think I’ve said this from the very beginning, the goal coming into this year was to be better in November, to play hard and to teach this team how to win… those were the tenets that I wanted to instill in this team. And those are there, they know how to win football games, and that’s a great trait to have. They believe they’re going to win, and they find a way to win. And this is a perfect exam

“Just a tough, physical, you talk about, if you look up strain in the dictionary, he’s the guy. He just strains for everything and just has a great effect on everybody when he’s out there. Got a little banged up, we had to take him out, he should be ok. He was gameday captain again for the third or fourth time. He’s a big influence on our team.”

“We still had to prepare for the offensive structure of a quarterback that could run it and throw it, so it didn’t really affect it that much. We kind of had to prepare as if he was playing, and then if the backup played we were ready. I thought (Cade Fortin) did really well coming in, he threw a great ball down the sideline. I thought he gave them some great energy throwing the football, forced us to do some things that maybe we didn’t practice as much as some of the other things, so he was a catalyst for them.”

“We ran into quite a few of them, they did a really good job of staying on the edge, they did not want Jayden outside of the pocket. We should have been steppijg up in the pocket a lot more, we tried to get outside, they were not going to let us outside. They stayed on the edges… stayed to the level of the quarterback, I thought they were well coached…”

“We’ve thrown for 400. I think the ability to run the football, you’ve got to be able to run the football and set up at least some kind of offensive structure, and we played so well defensively. It’s not something we want to make a living at, but I think there have been some circumstances versus some of the teams that we’ve played that allows us to play the game that way. The turnovers, I think we’ve got to do a better job. Both of them were off of zone reads… I’ll put that on coaching, we’ve got to do a better job of spending more time on some of those conflict reads.”

“Sacks are overrated when they come to offensive line issues. Sometimes the quarterback causes sacks, sometimes it’s the back. When you break it all down, you don’t want your quarterback sacked at all. I think they did a really good job of bringing pressures and I think we probably needed to do a better job overall in pass protection. I’m not giving the offensive line a pass here, but anytime we talk about sacks, you should look at everybody, including the coaching of it. We all are responsible for that.”

“First and foremost, they fit in really well in terms of the culture. They were in a really good program here at Arkansas where they do the right things. They came in and were good models for doing things the right way, so they really helped me early on in making sure we had guys doing things the right way. Joe and Greg were outstanding in that respect. As football players, they’re good players and they’ve contributed, but I’d say their contributions off the field were as important as on the field.”

“I think you know I use analytics in making some of those calls but today, for example I punted on fourth and one late in the game… that was a go analytically to go for that, I chose not to. They were out of timeouts, I thought we were playing better defense than we were offense. Felt like it was the wise thing… Sometimes it’s a gut feeling and sometimes I use analytics to make those decisions.”