Everything Brian Kelly said after LSU’s blowout win over Auburn on Saturday night

You know, it’s been, you know, five consecutive SEC games for us. And, you know, it’s a tough run, but proud of our guys and the development of our team and what they’ve been able to do over the past five weeks, you know, we felt like we let one of them get away, but I love the response and the bounce back by our team, and tonight, you know, we played, we played really well, got off to a good start. That’s a good football team that we beat tonight. And, and beat them in, in a manner that doesn’t happen quite often. So proud of our guys, they had a great mindset. I thought they were physical. Tonight, we were the more physical team. I thought that we were pretty disciplined defensively, I thought our corners in particular, Zy Alexander was tested early on. And, you know, we challenged him to, you know, really play the ball in the air. And I thought he did a great job. And that’s what they wanted to do early, they want to throw fades, he took that away from them. And I give our defense a lot of credit. And, you know, they’ve been under a lot of scrutiny. And to see that kind of development over the past couple of weeks. It’s been, it’s been fun seeing that offense. It’s just, you know, I mean, they’re averaging over the last five teams that they played incredible offensive production. So throwing it, catching it, running it, the offensive line, pretty impressive stuff. So not much else to say, but a 48-18 win against a pretty solid Auburn football team and well-coached team. Pretty excited about it.

Yeah, I mean, I think I alluded to you guys earlier. And it was really about, you know, we felt like this offense is, is one that needed some help. And I don’t mean it within its own ranks, I meant the defense needed to play better. And, you know, we really looked at its structure and getting the right guys in the right place, and then playing a much more disciplined and aggressive type of defense. And I think we’re getting to that level of, you know, complimentary football, we’re not there yet. I thought we did some really good things in special teams. You know, obviously, the big kickoff return was key for us. Damian Ramos continues to be, you know, a really strong part of our game. And then, you know, I know Jay doesn’t put a lot but when he does he pins good returners to the sideline, and those are all maybe kind of get glossed over, but those little things make a big difference in field position.

Well, you know, we’ve got Army who’s gonna be a good tough physical football team. You know, this team controls its own destiny at this point. And we need to continue to improve on the defensive side of the ball, continue the consistency, obviously, from an offensive standpoint, but I’ll put this team up with anybody in the league right now. And we just need to continue to grow and continue to get better from a defensive perspective in terms of all 11 players, knowing their assignments, playing disciplined football, and being much more aggressive to the ball when it’s in the air. I think we do that this is this is a team that can compete for a championship

Yeah, Mason Taylor getting involved, the tight ends. Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty impressive. And I thought we did a good job of getting every the ball, Kyren Lacy probably had a breakout game, he drops one and comes to the sideline and said, ‘Coach, I owe you one.’ I said ‘No, you owe me two.’ And he got us two, thought he played, you know, last year, maybe Kyren doesn’t respond the right way and maybe drops his head a little bit. He’s matured so much that, you know, he stayed positive and said, ‘Coach, when I get my chance, I’m going to make it up.’ And it was great to see him do that.

Yeah, I mean, we can throw a lot of guys at you and we keep those bags fresh. You know, I thought Mike did a really good job of mixing things up. I mean, you didn’t know if it was run or pass and, and then when we needed to get physical, we were able to do that and roll up our sleeves. It was, it was a really, really good performance.

Well, it starts with each player now understands the whole structure of the defense, as I’ve said to many people that have been at these press conferences, you know, we were searching for the right defensive structure, we were moving Harold Perkins all around, we were in three-down, we were in some four-down, we’ve committed to four down with Harold at the SAM backer position. So everybody now is comfortable in knowing what their assignments are. When you can get your cleats in the ground and play defense run, hit and get excited. I know those sound like cliches, but that really helps with the confidence of the group. And then I think we’re playing the ball better in the air on the back end.

Yeah. You know, it was interesting. The penalties were cadence penalties. You know, we never think that verbal is going to be an issue, a verbal cadence at home. But it was even loud at home, that we had to switch to nonverbal. It was such a crowd here tonight that we were in a verbal cadence where our center and offensive line couldn’t hear us. And that’s unusual. So we picked up a couple of penalties there that put us in a tight spot. Yeah, Lance Heard had a penalty, a holding penalty, a young guy in there, but you know, we find a way to overcome it. That’s right. You can’t continue to do that, though.

Yeah, ankle sprain. He’s got a sprain. So we’ll evaluate him tomorrow when we bring him in, and we’ll see what kind of level, is it one that requires, you know, a week? Is he ready this week? I wouldn’t know, we wouldn’t know until probably sometime Sunday, Monday.

I don’t think I don’t think we were ever thrown off track. Like we were never out of sync, we just had some untimely, you know, a false start, as I said, the guys couldn’t hear, you know, so there was nothing that I went to the sideline and said, ‘Oh, this thing is, you know, out of sequence or the rhythm isn’t good.’ Sometimes you can feel rhythm on offense, like, I never felt we were out of rhythm. You know, we had an untimely holding, we got a freshman in there, you know, you’re gonna have to live with a couple of those. And then Charles couldn’t hear, you know, couldn’t hear the verbal, so we went nonverbal. So, I really wasn’t concerned about the offense, we made a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes, but I felt like they were in a good rhythm.

He got sandpapered all week. I mean, he just needed to get, you know that grit and toughness of playing corner and you’re gonna get beat. But you know what, you got to get back in there. And you got to use your technique, and you got to go fight for the football. And I think he’s growing and understanding the position much more. You know, we flip the corners quite a bit. You know, we met field and boundary tonight for the first time to get some matchups that we wanted. And I think he likes that. And but I think more than anything else, it’s just, he’s got a better mindset about playing instead of being reactionary. He’s much more aggressive, and we’re gonna keep it that way.

They brought a lot of pressure. When he came in the game at his side, they brought a lot of edge pressure. He was really good. I mean, he’s long, he’s athletic, he has a great set. You know, there’ll be things that he can clean up, but that’s a plug and play guy, that’s a guy that can go in, you know, when you lose one of your top guys, and you can look around and go, ‘Okay, we’re gonna be okay here.’ But there’s things that we’re gonna have to clean up with them, but that’s a nice player to come off the bench and put in there.

Yeah, I think he’s doing a nice job, actually. There were a couple of things tonight that he did that were part of his growth and development in the run game and pass protection. So it was nice to see you know that kind of development six games into it. He’s gonna be a fine player. He’s just learning and then you’re seeing that kind of take shape and form out on the field and that’s all I think coach Wilson is much more comfortable putting them out there later in the game in the third and fourth quarter. John Emery had a tight Achilles that’s why he came off. It doesn’t seem to be a major issue. But you know, he ran hard and it was good to get you know, all those guys some action.

Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things. One, you know, the consistency and what we’re doing and how we’re doing it based upon, you know, running the ball playing physical upfront, and then, you know, taking shots all over the field, and getting the ball to the playmakers. Look, this game is still about getting the ball to the guys that can make plays. And so you can see all the touches that Malik Nabers is getting, BT didn’t get as many tonight, Kyren got some of them but you know, he’s he targets the playmakers and that’s what you have to do and when you have these guys, because you’re not gonna have them very long, get them the ball and let them do their thing. And I think Mike has been around long enough to know you don’t get many chances at these kinds of players and get them the football and watch them play.

We’ve taken a lot of air out of the offenses, you know, in terms of gap integrity, we’re flattening out much more the gaps so there’s not a lot of space. So, credit the front seven, the front seven’s doing a much better job. So now when safeties and corners are filling, they don’t have huge areas to talk in. We’re creating better opportunities for them to get into tackling space. So it starts there, and we’re tackling 20 minutes a day now. Now, we’re not bringing them on the ground because you can’t do that, but we are fundamentally working on tackling every single day until we are in a position where we feel like we’re going to tackle the football the right way. And that was the commitment that we had, we have to be able to continue to get better defensively and those were kind of the priorities.