GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Apparently, the 15-minute cooling off period was not enough for LSU coach Brian Kelly after his team’s 23-7 “win” over Louisiana Tech Saturday night.
He went on a semi-rant that was great stuff, but he soon regretted it.
“Many times you kind of get a chance to regroup after a press conference, which I don’t want to go on a long dissertation, but they should have the postgame press conferences today,” Kelly said to open his weekly press conference on Monday.
“I mean, it would be so much easier on everybody,” he said. “You get a chance to watch the film and kind of just calm down. It’s like you’re right in it (on game night). We were just in a battle, and emotions are what they are. But today I feel a lot better.”
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Regardless of Kelly’s sudden or delayed approach, LSU did not play well on offense against a 37-point underdog. And Kelly knows his No. 3-ranked Tigers (2-0) will have to play significantly better to beat Florida (1-1), which fell from No. 13 to out of the Associated Press rankings on Sunday after an 18-16 loss to 17-point underdog South Florida on Saturday.
Kickoff is at 6:30 p.m. on ABC in Tiger Stadium.
Revisiting my infamous tweet about Billy Napier and LSU in 2022. BTW, Brian Kelly’s record at LSU better than my top LSU candidate Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss over same span as well as my other candidate Lincoln Riley at USC.https://t.co/8zey4U9Msr
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) September 8, 2025
“We won the game. We dominated them statistically,” Kelly said. “Our defense, up until late in the game when we made some substitutions, was poised for a shutout.”
Kelly praised wide receivers Barion Brown and Zavion Thomas more than he did Saturday and pointed out that the Tigers were an excellent 9 of 16 on third down conversions.
“But it was not an elite performance,” Kelly said. “That performance is on everybody. I have to coach better. Our coaches have to be better. We’ve got to be much more organized in certain areas. And then our players have to reach and exceed the standard of what we expect. And we didn’t have that across the board.”
Kelly hopes that he, his team and staff learn from the game.
“There’s a lot of good things to take out of this game for us moving into the SEC play and an outstanding opponent in Florida,” he said. “I really liked the energy we played with, the want-to and the care. What I felt was lack of attention to detail in some areas.”
One of the highlights of Kelly’s press conference Saturday was admitting how much he performed spin during previous seasons after losses or bad games.
“If I didn’t think we had the players, I’d be in here giving you the Brian Kelly spin,” he said Saturday night. “I’d give you everything that I could come up with about how great we are. But we’ve got better players on this roster. And we’ve got to coach them better. This isn’t just our coaches stink or our players stink. This is everybody collectively did not live up to the standard that we have set here.
“And you can only do that when you believe that you have more. And we have more this year. And that didn’t show up tonight. And that’s disappointing. Now, I need to get over it, and we need to get ready for Florida.”
Apparently, Kelly is now over it. But is he back to spinning again?
We shall see.
Funny, Kelly later accused a reporter of spinning a question when he asked about LSU ranking last in the SEC in pass plays of 20 yards or more with three for last in the SEC.
“We haven’t played an SEC game? How do we rank last in the SEC? We’ll play Florida, and then we’ll tell you whether we’re last,” Kelly said. “You guys can spin anything. I thought I was the guy who’s supposed to spin it.”
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