GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
They had one for LSU football coach Gerry DiNardo in the 1999 season. He dismissed it, said it really didn’t happen. He soon got fired.
There was at least one during Les Miles’ almost-fired season of 2015 before he recovered to go 9-3, but he still got dismissed after a 2-2 start in 2016.
Yes, the proverbial players-only meeting. It happens often when a team with high expectations falls suddenly to mediocrity and usually just after a particularly bad loss. The Tigers (6-4, 3-3 Southeastern Conference) entered this season No. 13 in the nation, but fell out of the polls this week following their third straight loss. And that was to a 4-5 and 2-4 Florida team at the time.
WHO’S CALLING THE PLAYS, AND WHO’S ON FIRST?
So, coach Brian Kelly’s players had their players-only powwow on the Monday after the 27-16 loss at Florida. A loss, by the way, to a coach – Billy Napier – on the firing block for most of his tenure at Florida, which started in the same 2022 season in which Kelly started at LSU. And Napier just got the proverbial vote of confidence from athletic director Scott Stricklin just before losing 49-17 at Texas on Nov. 9. Votes of confidence amid bad seasons often means a firing is near, but LSU may have saved Billy the Kid’s job.
The dreaded public vote of confidence hasn’t come yet for Kelly from athletic director Scott Woodward, who hired him after the 2021 season for approximately $10 million a year through 2031. Maybe next year? Truth is, Kelly will not be fired. Woodward’s time at LSU is tied to Kelly’s since he hired him. Should Woodward justifiably fire Kelly down the road, that could mean Woodward would be next to go as he would have failed at his most important job – finding a football coach.
LSU junior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, senior running back Josh Williams, senior linebacker Greg Penn III and junior left tackle Will Campbell arranged the players-only meeting to “reset” before the final two games of the regular season – at home against Vanderbilt (6-4, 3-3 SEC) on Saturday (6:45 p.m, SEC Network) and Oklahoma (5-5, 1-5 SEC) a week from Saturday (6 p.m., ESPN).
Coaches were not invited to the meeting. The Tigers have not lost three straight in a regular season since 2021 under previous coach Ed Orgeron, whose resignation announcement a month before that third straight loss preempted the need for a players-only meeting. That team finished 6-7.
“We got up and talked in front of the team,” Campbell explained on Tuesday during weekly player interviews. “We’re just talking things out, trying to get everybody on the same page because we have to have all 11 guys clicking as one to make this thing go. We have to finish.”
LSU would likely still go to a bowl even if it finishes 6-6. But it could finish 6-7 after a bowl loss for the second time in four years.
“It’s not a coaching problem,” Campbell said. “It’s not a scheme. It’s none of that. It’s us. Against Florida, we had 13 negative plays. Whether that’s penalties, missed assignments, whatever you might call it.”
Campbell himself had one of those – a false start penalty. And he has had a few of those this season.
“When you don’t do the little things right, you don’t deserve to win, quite frankly,” he said.
Campbell deflected the blame from the much-criticized Kelly and offensive coordinator Joe Sloan.
“It’s our job to go handle everything on the field,” he said. “Nobody’s opinions of what we are, what we should do, who should be fired, matter.”
Ironically, it was Campbell who said before this season that 10 wins wasn’t good enough after LSU went 10-4 and 10-3 in Kelly’s first two seasons in 2022 and ’23 with Campbell starting at left tackle both seasons.
“Winning 10 games is cool at other schools,” Campbell said last August. “Not here. Winning 10 games gets people fired.”
LSU fans would love to be complaining about just 10 wins this season.
“We’re put in the right positions,” Campbell continued. “It’s up to us to do it. It’s not the coaches. They put us in the best positions to win.”
Kelly was not surprised by the players-only meeting.
“Sometimes the perspective is, ‘Well, there’s a players-only meeting. There’s friction between the coaches and the players,’” Kelly said on the SEC teleconference on Wednesday. “That’s not the case.”
Kelly said he learned of the players-only meeting through his team’s leadership council of several veteran players.
“What the meeting was about was that we’ve got to play better,” he said. “And stop making excuses. Feedback was, collectively from everybody, was that we need to go out and play and perform.”
INJURY REPORT
One of the reasons for LSU’s problems on offense in its three-game losing streak has been the absence of starting left guard Garrett Dellinger, who suffered a high ankle sprain in the first loss of the trilogy at Texas A&M on Oct. 26 and had surgery. He missed the last two losses, including at Florida Saturday when the offensive line allowed a season-high seven sacks. Nussmeier had been sacked just five times all season before that game.
It would be a reach to blame the loss of Dellinger for the loss at Texas A&M, however. Nussmeier three three interceptions in the second half of that game, including two in which he was not under rush pressure. In fact, many of Nussmeier’s 11 interceptions have come this season from him throwing to covered receivers while not under pressure.
Since Dellinger got hurt, LSU has allowed 11 sacks. There were only two in the previous seven games. But he has a chance to play Saturday against Vanderbilt as he was listed as questionable on Wednesday.
“He practiced a little bit (on Tuesday),” Kelly said on the SEC teleconference. “We’re taking it day by day. You don’t throw him in for everything. He he was part of our pass protections, and he felt comfortable there. We’re going to get him involved in the run game. So we’re making progress. I would say I’m optimistic, but each day we’ve got to work on building that confidence, where he feels he can go out and be an asset for us.”
Redshirt freshman Paul Mubenga has replaced Dellinger with mixed results. He allowed 14 quarterback pressures in the losses at Florida and to Alabama.
LSU starting right guard Miles Frazier (ankle) is also listed as questionable after getting hurt at Florida. He was replaced by redshirt freshman Tyree Adams.
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