By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
ATLANTA – Since LSU’s Brian Kelly is less than eight Saturdays away from trying to avoid becoming the only current Power 4 Conference college football head coach to open the season with a loss for a fourth straight year, he’s decided to take a different approach.
You mean other than losing openers to Florida State twice in 2022 and 2023 and to USC last season, putting the Tigers’ playoff hopes behind the 8-ball before Labor Day?
And if you want to count Ed Orgeron’s season-opening losses in his last two years to Mississippi State in 2020 and 2021 at UCLA, that’s five straight season-opening defeats for the purple and bruised.
A loss in the Aug. 30 opener at possibly top-five preseason-ranked Clemson would tie Kelly with Curley Hallman for the most consecutive season-opening losses by a Tigers’ head coach.
Kelly wants to avoid such a dubious distinction, and here’s his plan.
“Embrace the opener,” Kelly said here Monday at the College Football Hall of Fame on the opening day of the 40th SEC Football Media Days. Embracing it in a manner that it is a big game. Let’s not warm up into the season. We want to be ready for this football game.”
LSU fifth-year senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier confirmed he and his teammates have bought into Kelly’s approach.
“We have a 1 and 0 mindset,” Nussmeier said. “You always expect LSU to compete for the national championship. In the past, we looked so far into that result that we’ve almost gotten lost in what it takes to get there.
“This year, it’s more about focusing on the process and the path it takes. That starts being 1 and 0.”
Kelly’s rebuilding process of a program that had fewer than 40 scholarship players on Orgeron’s last 2021 roster before he was fired has been a year-to-year challenge.
He fired special teams coordinator Brian Polian after year one. He fired his entire defensive staff after year two.
Kelly overachieved in his first season in 2022 by beating Alabama, winning the West Division, advancing to the SEC title game, and finishing 10-4.
He underachieved in season No. 2 in 2023 when QB Jayden Daniels winning the Heisman Trophy was only enough for a 10-3 record. A host of bad portal transfer purchases in the secondary led to one of the worst defenses in the nation.
“Clearly, the 2023 offensive football team we had was good enough to win a national championship,” Kelly said. “We weren’t good enough as a team. A lot of that had to do with addressing some shortcomings we had on defense.”
Last year in Kelly’s third season, LSU started 6-1 overall and 3-0 in the SEC, thanks to an offense carried by Nussmeier’s passing.
But offensive imbalance, due to the SEC’s worst rushing attack and a lack of consistent pass rush, led to a three-game losing streak (at Texas A&M, Alabama, at Florida) that doomed the Tigers to a 9-4 record.
As an athletic department, LSU was slow out of the gates in organizing an NIL collective when the NCAA made it legal to buy athletes beginning in July 2021. It wasn’t until last December when Kelly announced he would match at least $1 million of NIL donations that the Tigers amassed a suitable war chest to make quality portal purchases.
“We had 1,600 supporters follow that up, which raised that number to about $3.5 million,” Kelly said.
That money and more helped LSU land the No. 1 transfer portal recruiting class of 2025, with a primary focus of giving second-year defensive coordinator Blake Baker plenty of high-end talent.
Edge rushers Patrick Payton of Florida State and Jack Pyburn of Florida, plus Virginia Tech cornerback Mansoor Delane and Houston safety AJ Haulcy will step in immediately as starters.
“We have not played the kind of defense necessary to win a national championship,” Kelly said. “I think we put a roster together in this offseason, along with young players that have taken lumps along the way as they’ve developed, and given Blake now the tools to play championship-level defense.”
Ten wins will likely land LSU a spot in the College Football Playoffs. Nussmeier believes the Tigers will be in the thick of the fight.
“It’s obvious what the expectations are for our team from the outside,” Nussmeier said. “The best part about our team this year is that expectation has also come from within. There is no hiding that we expect ourselves to play for the national championship. We expect to play at that level.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com