Everything Brian Kelly said after LSU’s win over Mississippi State in SEC opener
The first SEC win for Tigers coach Brian Kelly came in impressive fashion.
In Saturday night’s conference opener at home against Mississippi State, LSU had to battle back from a 13-0 deficit in the first half. But thanks to a very impressive defensive performance and a 21-point fourth quarter as a result of some powerful running down the stretch, the Tigers sit at 1-0 in SEC play after a 31-16 win.
Just two weeks removed from a disappointing performance in the season-opening loss to Florida State, the Tigers look like a vastly improved team. With upcoming games against New Mexico and Auburn, who lost big at home to Penn State on Saturday, this team could be 4-1 entering the meat of the SEC schedule.
Here’s what Kelly said after the huge win for his team.
Opening statement
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“Obviously a great SEC game. Two outstanding defenses, ours was better in the second half… Just a classic battle of two really good defenses. Jayden Daniels made a lot of plays for us in the second half. Receivers stepping up, the backs step up, and what was evident to me was our physical conditioning in the third and fourth quarter. We were able to control the line of scrimmage.
“We ran the football effectively and we were able to close out the football game. That’s what you have to do… Really excited, our guys are gritty, they were down in the game. They never questioned whether they could come back, and we’re building that kind of mindset… We just want to be a better team in November.”
On the defensive game plan vs. the air raid...
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Kelly talked quite a bit going into the game about the importance of slowing down Mississippi State’s air-raid offense. The Tigers did just that, holding the Bulldogs to 289 yards of offense in one of quarterback Will Rogers’ most pedestrian performances in recent memory.
After the game, he offered praise to defensive coordinator Matt House for putting together an effective game plan and to the players for executing it.
“The most important thing is you can’t give them a pre-snap look that is comfortable,” Kelly said. “I thought our players did an incredible job following through with the game plan that gave them a pre-snap look and it changed post-snap. That’s the players being disciplined, that’s mixing up calls, we played a lot of man on the back, we did not give them free dump-offs to the back, which gets them in really favorable down and distance situations and forces them to execute the ball down the field, which they hadn’t shown they were going to push it vertically that far.
“I think the kids did a great job of executing the game plan, and I think Matt did a great job with the staff of putting together the kind of disguises necessary to go against the air raid.”
On early struggles in the run game...
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LSU struggled to run the ball early in Saturday’s game, totaling 81 yards on the ground in the first half. It totaled 125 in the second, including game-clinching rushing touchdowns from [autotag]Josh Williams[/autotag] and [autotag]Armoni Goodwin[/autotag] in the fourth quarter.
Kelly said inexperience on the offensive line was a contributing factor to those early struggles. LSU trotted out its third different starting combination of linemen, and this week’s included true freshman at the tackle spots in [autotag]Will Campbell[/autotag] and [autotag]Emery Jones[/autotag].
“It’s a very good defense we were playing… we’re playing two true freshmen at the tackle positions. I think that might be our third lineup change this year… there’s a lot of calls, so continuity is important, but I would say physical conditioning was really huge in the second half for us and we were able to move them off the ball late.”
On adjustments in the second half...
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LSU trailed 13-7 at the half, but it outscored MSU 24-3 in the second half. A lot of that has to do with adjustments made at the half, particularly on offense. Kelly said the offense changed up some protections to help quarterback Jayden Daniels get the ball out faster.
“First of all, we went into some seven-man protection, we let the tight end in, some max protection, the ball came out quicker,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we protected him. We sprinted out on some key situations, came up with some big plays on third down.”
On the defensive side, Kelly said the team made fewer adjustments, understandable given the fact that it played well throughout.
“Defensively, it was no major adjustments,” he said. “We played two trail and got a little too soft, got out of that, but everything else we kind of kept the same with our defensive structures.”
On the young offensive line's performance...
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As previously mentioned, the Tigers had two true freshmen starting at the tackle spots. The guard spots were also occupied by sophomores in [autotag]Garrett Dellinger[/autotag] and [autotag]Miles Frazier[/autotag] with [autotag]Anthony Bradford[/autotag] out.
Overall, despite some early penalties, Kelly had praise for the starting group.
“It’s really good. Some of the penalties were, we thought we had somebody in the neutral zone, they saw it differently. We had a tough day with the clock, that will be a Monday meeting. We’ll see what happens there.
“All in all, to have two true freshmen, two young guys… I’m really pleased with what they did tonight.
On how far the team has come since Florida State loss...
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Just 13 days before Saturday night’s game, LSU lost a disappointing game in its season opener to Florida State.
Though Kelly was hesitant to make any grand claims about the team’s improvement, he is optimistic that it’s on the right track after Saturday night.
“The one thing I know about this group for certain… They’re fighters,” he said. “They’ll fight. I knew that they would fight tonight.
“We have a standard of preparation that has to get better each and every week. If we continue to work toward that standard of preparation, they’re going to be pretty good… Winning helps, so if we can continue on that realm, I think this team can continue to get better.”
On connection between Jayden Daniels and Malik Nabers...
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[autotag]Kayshon Boutte[/autotag] was expected to be one of the best receivers in the country this fall, but he had just three catches for 31 yards in this game. Malik Nabers has been the leading receiver this season and was once again on Saturday, totaling 76 yards on six catches.
Kelly said Daniels and Nabers are developing a connection, but a lot of the targets have to do with Boutte drawing double coverage, leaving Nabers open.
“(Daniels) likes finding (Nabers)… He does feel comfortable getting the ball to him, we’ll get it to Kayshon too, he gets a little bit more coverage and help over the top, so Malik’s the beneficiary of it. It’s much more about Kayshon sometimes gets the double coverage, which leaves Malik in a really good situation and Jayden sees that.”
On moving Jay Ward to nickel...
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LSU opted for a change in the secondary this week, moving [autotag]Jay Ward[/autotag] to nickel and swapping [autotag]Greg Brooks Jr.[/autotag] to the safety spot. It worked out swimmingly as Ward led the team in tackles with 11 and notched an interception.
“Playing him low and giving him the opportunity to run fit… He was outstanding, he was all over the place,” Kelly said. “One of the things that we were concerned was the ball getting outside him. It got outside him one time where he got a little aggressive, but he was all over the place.
“Just the position itself where he can be involved in the physicality instead of being a deep player in the middle of the field, that’s really the difference between where he is now.”
On third-down success in the fourth quarter...
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LSU’s offense had a really hard time staying on the field for much of the game. Heading into the fourth quarter, it was 0 for 8 on third-down attempts. However, it was 6 of 7 on third downs in the final quarter, allowing to possess the team to possess the ball for more than 11 of the last 15 minutes.
Kelly said the team sped things up and simplified a bit later in the game, but there weren’t major adjustments that led to the team’s improvement.
“Paralysis by analysis maybe early on. We went faster, we kept seven-man protections, simplified it, maybe got a little too cute early on and kept it a little bit simpler moving forward in those third-down conversions and got the ball out quicker. We got some run after the catch instead of trying to get to the markers.”
