By GLENN GUILBEAU
Tiger Rag Editor
LAS VEGAS – It was easily the most upset Brian Kelly has been in now his third season as LSU’s coach.
And third season opening loss, that is – 27-20 to No. 23 USC at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday night.
“We had some guys who played their butts off tonight,” Kelly said calmly to a question about how well tailback John Emery Jr., defensive end Sai’vion Jones and wide receiver Aaron Anderson played. “And that’s what I said to the team. And we’re sitting here again.”
Right then, Kelly’s praise turned to anger.
“And we’re sitting here AGAIN,” he yelled as he pounded his left fist on the table, “talking about the same things. About not finishing when you have an opponent in a position to PUT THEM AWAY! But WHAT WE’RE DOING ON THE SIDELINE is feeling like THE GAME’S OVER. And I’m so angry about it that I’ve got to do something about it.”
Kelly used the term “angry” to describe himself three times.
“I’m not doing a good enough job as a coach,” he said as the roaring rant continued. “I’ve got to coach them better, because it’s unacceptable for us not to have found a way to win this football game. It’s ri-DIC-ulous. It’s CRAZY. Crazy.”
No. 13 LSU took a 17-13 lead with 3:42 to play in the third quarter on a 13-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Garrett Nussmeier to Anderson and still held that lead at the five-minute mark of the fourth quarter. But the Tigers (0-1) wilted when it counted late on both sides of the ball.
And USC (1-0) outscored LSU 14-3 from the 5:44 mark of the fourth quarter until the final tick.
The Tigers put up 421 yards with Nussmeier throwing for 304 and two touchdowns. And the defense held USC to only 13 points until the final moments, but LSU relaxed and started counting its Vegas winnings too early.
“The other thing is this,” Kelly began and flat looked sick to his stomach as he rehashed the game. “Unfortunately, it’s clear that when we get up in a game, we do not know how to handle ourselves. You’ve got to have a killer instinct in this game. You’ve got to put teams away. We had an opportunity to put this team away, and we got complacent. We make more mistakes when we’re ahead instead of having a better focus and a steely-eyed killer instinct.”
LSU’s much criticized defense of last year looked better and actually forced a punt and stopped USC on downs on back-to-back possessions after the Tigers took the 17-13 lead. But its offense chose that time to punt on back-to-back possessions.
That is when USC took over when it got the ball back with 6:57 to go after that second punt by LSU.
“And that’s disappointing, and so I’m angry at those things,” Kelly said and continued to look as if he was in pain. “I have to do a better job in shaping that in this group because we had guys that played hard. We had guys that wanted to win and were prepared to win. But those things just eat at me. And they’ve got to get fixed.”
The offense not taking advantage of key opportunities after defensive stops and not scoring touchdowns in the red zone left little margin for error for a rebuilding defense.
“When our best was needed offensively, we were not able to deliver,” he said. “You get inside the 15-yard line three times, and you come away with six points, that’s going to come back and beat you. We left a lot of points out there. We put way too much pressure on our defense to be something that they’re not ready to be. They battled, but we have warts, and they’re not going away over night.”
LSU reached the 3-yard line on its first possession after a long drive, but a fourth down play there did not work as a blitz hurried a pass by Nussmeier that was incomplete. Then while trailing 20-17 in the final five minutes, LSU reached a first down at the USC 16, but had to settle for a 31-yard field goal and 20-20 tie.
“We needed to score in those situations,” he said.
Kelly also vented vehemently about two of his team’s penalties born out of a lack of discipline that each led to scores for the Trojans. Safety Jardin Gilbert was guilty of targeting in USC’s game-winning drive. The 15-yard penalty put the Trojans’ ball at the LSU 13-yard line and got Gilbert ejected from the game. On the next play, USC tailback Woody Marks scored on a 13-yard run for the 27-20 lead with eight seconds to play.
And after LSU tied the game 7-7 in the second quarter on wide receiver Kyren Lacy’s 19-yard touchdown catch, Lacy drew an unsportsmanlike conduct for celebrating the score by mimicking shooting a gun from each hand.
“The thing that’s most concerning was the personal fouls that are selfish and led to scores,” Kelly said angrily. “They’re undisciplined penalties, and effectively fall back on me. We take pride in running a disciplined program, and we have clearly not done a good enough job there. I have to do better.”
LSU may be playing a lighter opponent Saturday in Nicholls State in Tiger Stadium, but Kelly’s players are in for one difficult week of practice.
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