Brian Kelly addressed the media Monday, recapping LSU football’s 45-25 loss versus Florida State and previewing the upcoming game against Grambling State.
Here were some of the takeaways from the press conference.
The team’s mentality
Kelly opened his Tuesday press conference by addressing his postgame comment in which he said the team “wasn’t the I thought we were.” He clarified the comment, saying it applied to the mental aspect of the team rather than physical.
“I knew who they were physically, but when you’re playing and competing at the highest level, this is about a connection between the mental preparation, the mind and the body, and there was a disconnect there,” Kelly said.
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Kelly said the team lacked a “competitive edge.” He added that they needed to play with more urgency while still maintaining emotional control.
“If you have a competitive edge, if you recognize how hard this game is and you’re focused, none of that crap that I just mentioned will matter because they’ll overcome it,” Kelly said referring to the team’s mentality versus tactical changes.
Harold Perkins
One of the storylines surrounding LSU’s loss was how little Harold Perkins affected the game. Perkins played inside linebacker and off the ball more often on Sunday compared to his role on the edge and in pass rush last season. When talking about Perkins’ role, Kelly said the coaching staff had a lot to consider.
“Player development has to be thought about. Where he goes at the next level has to be thought about and then impacting our team. So, I think that there is a happy medium there that we could probably strike, and we’ve already begun to look at how we can be most effective for Harold and for LSU,” Kelly said.
Injury report
Not much changed with injuries on LSU’s team, according to Kelly’s injury report. Armoni Goodwin was upgraded to questionable after missing the Florida State game and Aaron Anderson was listed as probable.
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Maason Smith is eligible to return from his suspension after missing the season opener, a player Kelly said he felt “giddy” to have back. Running back John Emery is unavailable for the game against Grambling State, according to Kelly. Regarding Emery’s status, Kelly mentioned last week that he could return for Week 3.
Third and fourth down adjustments
Another talking point after the loss was LSU’s inability to convert on third and fourth down. The Tigers went 0-3 on fourth downs and 3-10 on third downs, with two of the fourth down stops in the redzone.
“When we talk about most of the issues that we had on both sides of the ball, it will come back to being one eleventh of the unit, meaning do your job,” Kelly said. “We had guys that in situational football, were trying to do three other jobs instead of their own job. And if we were more disciplined, and more focused and had the details to their job taken care of, we’d find ourselves in a different position.”
The struggles in those situations came on both sides of the ball, Florida State finished the game 9-14 on third downs and converted its one fourth down attempt of the game. Kelly said a number of factors could help the defense improve, including more creativity in the play calling.
“We send down a safety to sit on the curl, he’s watching the quarterback. We could have been more creative with play calling. We could have been better defensively in making less spy calls and bringing more pressure,” Kelly said.
